250th anniversary of Robert Burns
20 Mar 09
The name Robert Burns won’t mean much to a lot of people but anyone who has gathered for a New Year’s Eve celebration will unwittingly know his best-known work, Auld Lang Syne.
To celebrate 250 years since the birth of Scottish poet Burns, a conference, Burns and the Poets, is being held at the University of Oxford next week (25 and 26 March).
Burns and the Poets will gather together scholars, critics, musicians, and practising poets to celebrate the achievement and legacy of Robert Burns. The focus is on Burns as a poet and in relation to other poets – not only his own predecessors, contemporaries and literary heirs, but also leading contemporary poets.
The first day of the Conference begins at noon on 25 March, with an opening address from one of Scotland’s most distinguished poets, Douglas Dunn, and concludes with a poetry reading by him as well as two of Scotland’s other most important contemporary writers, Don Paterson and Robert Crawford.
Professor Fiona StaffordWe felt it was important to hold an event in Oxford to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Burns, who is so well known internationally but not always taken very seriously in England.
The conference will conclude on Thursday 26 March, with an evening of music and poetry featuring two of Oxford’s poets, Bernard O’Donoghue and Tom Paulin, performing with Mick Henry. Both days will offer a full programme of lectures, papers, and round table discussions.
The conference is being organised by Professor Fiona Stafford and Bernard O’Donoghue of the English Faculty. It is funded jointly by the Faculty and the John Fell Fund.
Professor Stafford said: 'We felt it was important to hold an event in Oxford to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Burns, who is so well known internationally but not always taken very seriously in England. Burns was one of the first poets to delight audiences everywhere on the social spectrum – and he continues to do so.
'The idea of the Conference is to explore Burns as a creative genius by examining his own work and the inspiration he has provided to other poets from his day until our own. The idea behind the Conference is that Burns is a living poet, even though he died more than two centuries ago, and that his words still matter to many people across the globe.'