Tam O’Shanter

First approached in its original Scots Gaelic dialect, “Tam O’Shanter” can seem exotic, intimidating, even frustrating. In addition, with it’s cautioning about witches and warlocks, it can seem to have little to say to a contemporary audience. The literary importance of “Tam O’Shanter,” stems from three interrelated elements: a) its wily sense of adventure and comic storytelling that is cinematic in conception and scope; b) its willingness to mock the conventions of typical storytelling with a sense of irony that remains accessible to modern readers; and c) the celebration and affirmation of a Scottish national identity and language at a time when Scotland was considered a second-tier country, void of culture compared to its English neighbor.

As a model of storytelling, “Tam O’Shanter,” provides a distinctly contemporary sense of character, setting, action, conflict, suspense, and climax. In this, Burns taps into a traditional kind of poem, the ballad, in which a central character, easy to identify with, often deeply and comically flawed, experiences a succession of trigger events beyond his ken, usually supranatural. The ballad form, like Burns’ poem, stresses the regular