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The Life of Robert Burns Robert Burns was one of Scotland’s most celebrated literary figures, producing some of the most beloved Scottish poems ever. He was Scotland’s National Poet, writing brilliant narrative poems, such as Tam o’Shanter, The Holy Fair, and Auld Lang Syne. But in another sense, his life was so short, so contradictory to itself that the words, the Life of Robert Burns sounds like cruel irony; as sad, shadowed, and disoriented as it was (Electric Scotland). His life very much so affected the way he wrote his poetry, eventually leading him to fame and fortune. Born on the 25 of January in 1759, in Alloway, Scotland, to William and Agnes Brown Burnes, Robert Burns (he eventually dropped the “e” from his surname) followed his father’s example by becoming a tenant farmer (Brown 3: 73). William Burns had inherited farming land in Alloway from his father, and had worked the land as income. Robert, growing up set to work as a farm laborer, had only two years of formal education at Murdoch’s school, where he learned of Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and Dryden. The rest of his small amount of education came from his father or his own findings. William eventually left his cottage in Alloway and took the s