Robert Burns and Freemasonry

概要

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In this paper I would like to bring to the reader's attention two generally neglected aspects of the legacy Robert Burns left behind. Firstly, few books on Burns even mention the fact that he was a Freemason. His involvement in speculative Masonry, which began to spread rapidly through Britain and across the Continent during the eighteenth century, colored much of Burns's intellectual perspective. The objectivity, the wit, the satirical view of religion, and the absence of effusiveness over nature we see in many of his poems, show clearly that he was a part of the Age of Enlightenment. Masonry with its emphasis on humanism and neo-Platonic thought was also a product of that age. In a paper of this scope it is not possible to go into the roots of Masonry in detail. That would require a whole book. This essay only intends to stimulate the reader's curiosity on Burns and Masonry.In the second part, I introduce the reader to the fact that Burns did much for the preservation of Scottish folk songs. Burns wrote hundreds of them. This is another area of his work that few people are even aware of. In Japan, for example, almost no one knows that Burns was the composer of Auld Lang Syne-better known there as Hotaru no Hikari.
2010-04-01