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The Songs

Of

Robert

Burns

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How many of you had heard poems,

or songs by Robert Burns

before you did the reading?

Now, cover your ears…

You all did!

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from “Poetry” by Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age... Poetry arrived�in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where�it came from, from winter or a river.

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To a Mouse

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One of the dozen times over the year that I read the poem myself (instead of students reading it). Mainly so I can use my overdone, overwrought Scottish accent… ☺

Notice right away the attitude the plowman has to the mouse. Remember all of these comments should be in the form of questions to the students. “What is the attitude that the farmer (plowman) has to the mouse?”

What has he done? (destroyed the mouse’s nest). Where do we see that? (In the italics). What does the farmer tell the mouse?

(that he (the mouse) needn't worry. He sees the mouse’s panic – but he will not be pursuing it with murderous thoughts).

Note the definitions given on the right-hand side of the slide. The poem and notes are taken from the students text books. However, you’ll find on this Lesson Page the poems so that students can write their notes directly on them.

Given all that will be discussed today – their pages should be covered with their notes.

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What does the farmer realize about the enormity of what he has done to the mouse?

(He has destroyed the mouse’s home)

The farmer gives two specific reasons for why – what he as done is such terrible thing to happen to the mouse. What season of the year is it? And what are those two very specific reasons?

(It is winter [he mentions the barren nature of the field and says that it is December])

(The first thing that makes it so bad is that there is nothing left in the barren field to make a new nest with.)

(The second reason for it being so horrible – is that it is cold, cold winter – and the mouse needs his home more than ever.)

Remember – get these answers from the students. Don’t give it away. Make them think. In 30 years of teaching this I never had a class that couldn’t come up with all of these answers.

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If the poem stopped there – it would�be a great poem – and this is where�most people stop (in their minds �anyway) with the poem…

But it is in the next stanza – that this�song (poem) achieves true immortal�stature…

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Whoa! What does Burns say to the mouse in that first line?

(That the mouse is blessed compared to him!)

How can that be? There are SIX stanzas of saying and repeating how horrible it is that the he (the farmer) has overrun the mouse’s home in the midst of winter.

BIG THOUGHT, BIG ANSWER – worth an entire year of classes. Make sure that answer comes from the students – there is absolutely no reason that they can’t get this, themselves.

(The mouse is “blessed” and much better off than us human – because it lives only in the present. While we look back to the past – and forward to the future. The mouse will soon get about trying to build a new house and completely forget what has happened with his old one – and he will not worry about another farmer, on another day destroying his new home.)

That preoccupation with the past and the future is the cause of our human stress, anxiety, and worry. This has SO MUCH to do with our students current lives. If only we could be mice (or goldfish as some say).

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Who knows the name of the novel,

play – that comes from this poem?

Who knows the name of the novel, play – that comes from this poem?

(Most of my students had read (or heard of) the novel or play: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and they will say it.

Ask a student who knows it to give a brief synopsis.

It’s about two men: George and Lenny – Lenny is cognitively disabled and always getting in trouble and George protects him (until the end when his past catches up with him) and get him out of trouble and they move to a new ranch where they work).

If you stopped BEFORE that last stanza of “To a Mouse” why would you think that Steinbeck gave his novel the title that he did?

(Because their plans keep getting messed up).

But now that you have read the entire poem – including that great last stanza – why is this book title titled what it is?

(WOW! Of course! Lenny is the “mouse” who only lives in the present – while George (the man) constantly is obsessed with what Lenny did in the past – and how that will catch up with them in the future.)

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Just using this poem – “what make� Robert Burns a “Romantic” (in the�sense of the preface to Lyrical Ballads)?

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Does this story sound familiar?

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Let’s see if you can� spot the artist?

Almost as important as “To a Mouse”. If “To a Mouse” postulates that we are cursed compared to mice, because we are constantly looking forward and back into the past. This song takes the exact opposite tack.

First I have s student (or 4 students – one for each stanza) read the song aloud. Then I ask what is the persona or speaker asking? �(Should we forget the past? The answer seems easy given what he say in “To a Mouse”)

And yet?

What is his answer?

(No – not only should the past not be forgotten – we should drink a toast to it.)

WOW! I love the ambiguity of having these two opposing texts by the same author – it points out the complexity of the question and the idea that nothing is simple or black and white.

I then play a number of different versions of “Auld Lang Syne” (the playlist can be found on the lesson page – and see if the students can identify who is the artist (these include: Barenaked Ladies, Jimmi Hendrix, Guy Lombardo.