Burns\' \"Luve\" Robert Burns\' Ballad

Burns' "Luve"

Robert Burns' ballad "O My Luve's Like a Red, Red Rose" may be (and has been) sung with all the ardor of youth -- and yet it is not a youthful poem. Burns did himself die at a relatively young age -- 37, but his 18th century lyrical poems presented something more than youthful love and idealism: they presented (like "Auld Lang Syne") the reflection of a time a place -- a sentiment that bordered on sentimentality. What Burns' Scottish poems signify is an elevation of the Romantic, which would come to dominate the literary scene in the next century. This paper will analyze this elevation in terms of balladry in Burns' "O, My Luve's Like a Red, Red Rose."

The ballad is actually an ode to the object of Burns' affections. The ABCB rhyme scheme is as simplistic as the reasons for Burns' love: physical beauty (she is like a rose) and the passion in him which her physical beauty rouses ("till a' the seas gang dry, my dear"). Burns' is convinced of the greatness of his love and, presumably, attempts to convince her of it as well simply by conveying in a ballad how deeply he feels for her.

Could one call it a ruse? After all, if this is an ode, it does not rightly apply to the reason but rather to the emotions for certitude: like a modern ballad sung in any of today's concert halls, Burn's ballad is not so much an ode to Love as it is an ode to physical charms and sentimental affection. At the end -- just as like in the end of many a ballad written today -- Burns the lover says goodbye to his beloved, promising to return. What sort of ode is this? Has it been as simplistically made as the rhyme scheme? Has Burns flagrantly violated the code of conduct of all true poetic lovers for the mere insubstantial qualities of a few lines of verse?

In four stanzas of four lines each, Burns neither speaks of the truth of his love nor of the duty it inspires him to take on, but rather the ode is an exaggeration of affection, with "luve" appearing seven times -- nearly, that is, in every other line. One who loves should not need to speak of it so frequently if he intends rather on showing it. Burns' "Luve" is merely to draw attention to two things: her charms and the emotions they inspire in him.

Thus, Burns' ode is not to a girl -- it is to himself. It is distinctly modern in this sense, just as Cervantes' poet shepherds mooning over the loss of innocence in the girl they have all adored sing not so much for her but for the sorrow in their own hearts. Gerard Manley Hopkins put it more aptly: "Margaret, are you grieving… / & #8230;It is the blight man was born for / It is Margaret you mourn for."