{"id":126,"date":"2023-02-07T17:05:47","date_gmt":"2023-02-07T17:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/?p=126"},"modified":"2023-02-07T17:05:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T17:05:47","slug":"a-red-red-rose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/2023\/02\/07\/a-red-red-rose\/","title":{"rendered":"A Red Red Rose"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Burns\u2019 \u201cA Red Red Rose\u201d is an effusively romantic poem, both in structure and content. It is written with alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, which make it a type of ballad. The poem\u2019s balladic structure enhances its romantic message by connecting it to the well-known romanticism and sentimentality of the genre. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The narrator begins the poem by comparing their \u201cluve\u201d to both a \u201cred, red rose\u201d that is \u201cnewly sprung\u201d and a \u201cmelodie\u201d that is \u201csweetly played in tune\u201d (Burns lines 1-4). These are common romantic similes which, alongside the ballad structure, set up the passionate tone of the poem. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While the \u201cluve\u201d mentioned in the first stanza could refer to either the narrator\u2019s love or their lover, the following stanzas are explicitly addressed to \u201cmy bonnie lass\u201d and \u201cmy dear\u201d (Burns lines 5, 8). In these stanzas, the narrator draws upon natural imagery to represent the passing of time and ensure their\u00a0lover of the longevity of their\u00a0affection. They state \u201cI will love thee still, my dear \/ Till a\u2019 the seas gang dry… And the rocks melt wi\u2019 the sun… While the sands o\u2019 life shall run!\u201d (Burns lines 7-8, 10, 12). These exaggerated claims illustrate the strength of their love through impossible to imagine natural phenomena. Just as one can\u2019t imagine the seas without water, the narrator can\u2019t imagine their life without their love. The repetition that occurs among these phrases further reinforces the narrator\u2019s vehement claims of\u00a0devotion while simultaneously enhancing the poem\u2019s balladic lyricism.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Interestingly, these claims of eternal love contradict the first stanza\u2019s similes, which compare the narrator\u2019s \u201cluve\u201d to ephemeral objects (Burns line 1). \u201cNewly sprung\u201d roses die, melodies end, and instruments fall out of tune (Burns line 2-4). These comparisons (especially the one to \u201cnewly sprung\u201d roses) suggest the beauty of a new relationship, as well as its inevitable impermanence (Burns line 2). The relationship between fleeting beauty and love is directly contrasted in the lines \u201cAs fair art thou, my bonnie lass, \/ So deep in luve am I\u201d (Burns lines 5-6). The use of the phrases \u201cas fair\u201d and \u201cso\u201d suggest a connection between the lover\u2019s beauty and the narrator\u2019s adoration of them; while their lover is beautiful, they love her deeply, but will this dim alongside her appearance? (Burns lines 5-6). Perhaps the narrator is saying their love will remain as intense as if it is new, for as long as they can envision. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, in using both the Scots spelling \u201cluve\u201d and the English spelling \u201clove,\u201d the narrator gives a sense of universality to their affection. This enhances their final claim that their love would endure anywhere, even \u201cten thousand mile\u201d away from their lover (Burns line 16). Overall, these romantic declarations encompass popular romantic themes by representing the impermanence of beauty and nature. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Burns\u2019 \u201cA Red Red Rose\u201d is an effusively romantic poem, both in structure and content. It is written with alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, which make it a type of ballad. The poem\u2019s balladic structure enhances its romantic message by connecting it to the well-known romanticism and sentimentality of the genre. … Continue reading A Red Red Rose<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4998,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4998"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}