Mar 01 2009
The Romantic Poets
I recently came across a Facebook group describing the Romantic poets, and to a T most of them were English in the posting, from Byron to Keats… and no mention of the Weaver Poets, either of Scotland, England or Ireland, and I thought this to be a great tragedy borth for the group members and also to the memory of the writers themselves.
While many may not be aware of the writings of William Orr or Samuel Ferguson, how can any description of poetry and poets be complete without mention of Robert Burns?
Robert Who? was a response I got when taking to freinds who claimed to know a lot about poetry… never heard of him or his work, who were asounded when they realised he was behind the words of Auld Lang Syne.
The former two were Ulster Scots, that is of the Scots tradition in Ireland, and they wrote of the world of the day as they saw it. The former lost his brother before the 1978 rebellion, and his death was one of the triggers in the area, inspiring the “Turn Oot” with its rally cry of “Remember Orr!”, climaxing in the tragic Battle of Ballinahinch, which has given inspiration to the tragic legend of Betsy Gray.
The Weaver poets came from Northern England, Scotland and Ireland, and were predominantly weavers by trade with the notable exception of Burns. They wrote of the world of their day as opposed to mysticism or idealism, and tended to write in the vernacul giving us one of the greatest modern collections of verse in Lallans and Ulster Scos and Hiberno-English that we have.
http://www.poetseers.org/the_romantics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaver_Poets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns
