Tale? "an example of narrative verse in its purest, least formalized state"
Ballad, Tragedy, Gothic
2. Narrative vs Lyric
"A lyric is --relatively--so brief that we may without danger of going far wrong consider it temporarily self-contained, timeless in the way that a painting is timeless. But a narrative is a temporal process. ... A verse story like Tam o' Shanter is, in fact, a dynamic system of probabilities created first of all by the order of the happenings which occur, and only secondarily by the nature of the protagonist whom they befall."(Karl Kroeber)
3. Humor
"Gathering her brows like gathering storm,/ Nursing her wrath to keep it warm"(11-12)
A parody of "the perennial scolding wife"?(Allan MacLaine)
A narrator, representing "a mind torn between native Scots and Scots-English culture," which is a "burlesque of Burns's divided self?"(John Weston)
"The landlady and Tam grew gracious,/Wi' favors secret, sweet, and precious"(47-48)
4. Philosophical
"But pleasures are like poppies spread--/You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;/ Or like the snow falls in the river--/A moment white, then melts forever;/Or like the borealis race,/That flit ere you can point their place;/ Or like the rainbow's lovely form/ Evanishing amid the storm."(59-66)
A parody of a "grandiose poetics or 'fine writing'"? (Allan Maclaine)
5. Terror
"Five tomahawks, wi' blude red rusted;/Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted;/ A garter, which a babe had strangled;/ A knife, a father's throat had mangled,/Whom his ain son o' life bereft-"(135-139)
A real terror in Tam's superstitious mind without destroying the richly comic mood?(Allan Maclaine)
6. Sympathy
"Ah! little kent hey reverend grannie/That sart she coft for ther wee Nannie/ Wi' twa pund Scots('twas a' her riches)/Wad ever graced a dance of witches!"(175-178)
Select Bibliography
Haan, Max J. M. de. "But to our Tale: Some Thoughts on the Art of Story-Telling of Robert Burns." Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Älteren Germanistik48 (1997): 161-8.
Kroeber, Karl. Romantic Narrative Art. U of Wisconsin P, 1960.
MacLaine, Allan H. "Burns's use of Parody in 'Tam O'Shanter'." Criticism1 (1959): 308-16.
Morton, Richard. "Narrative Irony in Robert Burns's 'Tam o'Shanter'." Modern Language Quarterly22 (1961): 12-20.
Pittock, Joan. "Burns: Tam O'Shanter and Cutty Sark." Durham University Journal81.2 (1989): 191-6.
Pittock, Murray. "Robert Burns, 'Tam o' Shanter'." A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry.Ed. Christine Gerrard.Blackwell, 2006. 329-337.
Thomas, W. K. "Burns 'Tam O'Shanter,' 57-58." Explicator28 (1969): Item 33.
Weston, John C. "The Narrator of Tam O' Shanter." SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-19008.3 (1968): 537-50.
Tale? "an example of narrative verse in its purest, least formalized state"
Ballad, Tragedy, Gothic
2. Narrative vs Lyric
"A lyric is --relatively--so brief that we may without danger of going far wrong consider it temporarily self-contained, timeless in the way that a painting is timeless. But a narrative is a temporal process. ... A verse story like Tam o' Shanter is, in fact, a dynamic system of probabilities created first of all by the order of the happenings which occur, and only secondarily by the nature of the protagonist whom they befall."(Karl Kroeber)
3. Humor
"Gathering her brows like gathering storm,/ Nursing her wrath to keep it warm"(11-12)
A parody of "the perennial scolding wife"?(Allan MacLaine)
A narrator, representing "a mind torn between native Scots and Scots-English culture," which is a "burlesque of Burns's divided self?"(John Weston)
"The landlady and Tam grew gracious,/Wi' favors secret, sweet, and precious"(47-48)
4. Philosophical
"But pleasures are like poppies spread--/You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;/ Or like the snow falls in the river--/A moment white, then melts forever;/Or like the borealis race,/That flit ere you can point their place;/ Or like the rainbow's lovely form/ Evanishing amid the storm."(59-66)
A parody of a "grandiose poetics or 'fine writing'"? (Allan Maclaine)
5. Terror
"Five tomahawks, wi' blude red rusted;/Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted;/ A garter, which a babe had strangled;/ A knife, a father's throat had mangled,/Whom his ain son o' life bereft-"(135-139)
A real terror in Tam's superstitious mind without destroying the richly comic mood?(Allan Maclaine)
6. Sympathy
"Ah! little kent hey reverend grannie/That sart she coft for ther wee Nannie/ Wi' twa pund Scots('twas a' her riches)/Wad ever graced a dance of witches!"(175-178)
Select Bibliography
Haan, Max J. M. de. "But to our Tale: Some Thoughts on the Art of Story-Telling of Robert Burns." Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Älteren Germanistik48 (1997): 161-8.
Kroeber, Karl. Romantic Narrative Art. U of Wisconsin P, 1960.
MacLaine, Allan H. "Burns's use of Parody in 'Tam O'Shanter'." Criticism1 (1959): 308-16.
Morton, Richard. "Narrative Irony in Robert Burns's 'Tam o'Shanter'." Modern Language Quarterly22 (1961): 12-20.
Pittock, Joan. "Burns: Tam O'Shanter and Cutty Sark." Durham University Journal81.2 (1989): 191-6.
Pittock, Murray. "Robert Burns, 'Tam o' Shanter'." A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry.Ed. Christine Gerrard.Blackwell, 2006. 329-337.
Thomas, W. K. "Burns 'Tam O'Shanter,' 57-58." Explicator28 (1969): Item 33.
Weston, John C. "The Narrator of Tam O' Shanter." SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-19008.3 (1968): 537-50.
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