"Address to the Devil" is a poem by Scottish poet Robert Burns. It was written in Mossgiel in 1785 and published in the Kilmarnock volume in 1786. The poem was written as a humorous portrayal of the Devil and the pulpit oratory of the Presbyterian Church.

Content

It begins by quoting from Milton's Paradise Lost as a contrast with the first two lines of the poem itself:

These lines are also a parody of a couplet in Alexander Pope's satire The Dunciad.

The poem was written in a Habbie stanza with the stanza six lines long and the rhyme scheme AAABAB. Burns used a similar stanza in Death and Doctor Hornbook.

The poem is also skeptical of the Devil's existence and of his intentions to punish sinners for all eternity as in the stanza.

:Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,

:An’ let poor damned bodies be;

:I’m sure sma’ pleasure it can gie,

::Ev’n to a deil,

:To skelp an’ scaud poor dogs like me,

::An’ hear us squeel!

This contrasts with the views contained in works such as Paradise Lost and the preachings of the Church.

See also

  • The Holy Tulzie

References

Further reading

  • Robert Burns Robert Burns Penguin Classics 1994
  • David Punter, A Companion to the Gothic Blackwell Publishing 2001 page 73
  • Robert Burns, The Works of Robert Burns Wordsworth Editions 1998 especially page 571
  • Jerome J McGann, Byron and Romanticism Cambridge University Press 2002 page 269
  • The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes Volume XI Chapter X on Burns
  • The Burns Encyclopedia article on Address to the Deil