The Rhetoric of A Red, Red Rose一朵红红的玫瑰修辞分析

罗伯特 彭斯一朵红红的玫瑰修辞分析

The Rhetoric of A Red, Red Rose

A Red, Red Rose is one of the best-loved love lyrics of Robert Burns who is one of the greatest literary figure in Scotland. As a great Scottish poet, Burns mainly used Scottish dialect and the tradition of Scottish folk songs in his poems.

A red, red rose includes four parts, and each of which has four lines. Apart from many simple sentence structures and lots of monosynaptic words, both the second and fourth lines of each part rhyme, which makes a harmonious creation with “a one word, three sign” style. As an iambic poetry, it expresses a kind of long lasting affection with adopting the “abab” rhythm scheme.①Burns used ballad metre in this poem, so it can be intoned and sung. Besides, a variety of rhetorical figures, simile, repetition and alliteration are used to express poet’s true love for his sweetheart.

A Red, Red Rose is recreated and based on the Scottish folk songs, and the pure, simple and fluent features of which are kept. The poet used really simple and sincere words to extol his lover. We can easily learn his emotion from this poem. In the first section, Burns usesd simile. He compared his sweetheart to red, red rose and melodie, which showed that he was really proud of his lover’s appearance and was indulged in her charming voice , even her everything. In the second and the third stanza, the poet claimed that “I will luve thee still, my dear”,“Till a’ the seas

罗伯特 彭斯一朵红红的玫瑰修辞分析

gang dry”,“And the rocks melt wi’ the sun!”, “While the sands o’life shall run.②”However, we all know that those things will never happen. Even if they may happen, human’s life is limited and we will never see those. It is quite obvious that the poet wanted to use this to show that he would love the girl forever. The hyperbolic expressions emphasize the poet’s promise of his timeless love. In the last stanza, he used "fare thee weel" to replace the normal expression "farewell". According to my understanding, he broke the one word into two, on the one hand, it was phonetically longer; at the same time, it showed his unwillingness to say goodbye to his love. He hoped that he could stay beside his love one more minute and then another.③

Although there are only sixteen lines in this poem, and “Luve” and “my dear” are repeated, we do not feel a little wordy. We are just moved by poet’s deep affection, and wonder how that beautiful lady looked like. What’s more, we girls may look forward to having our own Burns, who will love us forever, no matter what happens “till a’ the seas gang dry”④.

① 徐婷，The Appreciation and Criticism on the Three Translations of Robert Burns’ A Red, Red Rose, 英语广场，2011

② Robert Burns，A Red, Red Rose

③王莉，Stylistic Analysis of the Poem A Red, Red Rose, 海外英语，2012

吴珏030112217英教2班 ④ Robert Burns，A Red, Red Rose