Holy Willie's Prayer
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Holy Willie's Prayer is a poem by Robert Burns. It was written in 1785 and first printed anonymously in an eight page pamphlet in 1799.
It is considered the greatest of all Burns' satirical poems, and one of the best ever satires by any poet.[1]
It is written in the Scots dialect, but is accessible to most modern English readers.
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[edit] Analysis
The poem is an attack on the bigotry and hypocrisy of the Kirk (Church), as told by the (fictional) self-justifying prayer of a (real) kirk elder, Holy Willie. Throughout the poem, Holy Willie condemns himself as a hypocrite while simultaneously asking God to judge harshly and show no mercy to his fellow transgressors. Burns used the example of Holy Willie to make the point that the Calvinist theology underpinning the entire Kirk was equally hypocritical.
The Kirk was still a powerful moral force in Burns' day, and one which he believed he had a justified grievance against. Burns felt that belief in predestination, whether to salvation or damnation, could only make people morally reckless, because logically their actions could have no influence on their eternal fate. He observed that belief in predestination, particularly to salvation, had the additional tendency to make people insufferably self-righteous. It is this last tendency in particular, and the more general theological and moral sterility embodied in the teachings of the contemporary Kirk, that he rails against very effectively in this work.
Willie's soapy sanctimony is alternated with his self-justifying tales of his own fornication and other transgressions with very great skill. The characters are drawn from real life, with no names being changed.
In The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, 'Holy Willie' is used as a term of abuse for insincere clerics.
[edit] The story of the real Holy Willie
Willie Fisher (Holy Willie) was an elder of Daddy Auld's Calvinist kirk in Mauchline who conceived a dislike for Gavin Hamilton, a landlord and almoner (treasurer) in the kirk. Hamilton was suspected of financial impropriety when inconsistencies in the accounts were discovered. It may be (this was Hamilton's defence) that the deficit was the result of Hamilton's kindly (and Christian) acts in forgiving the debts of those who were unable to pay their tax to the kirk.
Fisher spied on Hamilton and added the charges of:
- Travelling on the Sabbath.
- Not reading the Bible on a Sunday.
- Digging his garden on the Sabbath (hence the reference to 'kail and potatoes' in the poem)
Hamilton won the case; it is hard to imagine how even nowadays with 24-hour surveillance the second charge could ever be proven. The Kirk appealed, twice, and lost again, twice. His lawyer Robert Aitken, as well as the changing moral climate of the day played a part, as much as the evidence presented in the three trials. The case was a talking point nationally, and can have done little to enhance the stature of the kirk.
Willie Fisher never recovered from the ignominy of this triple defeat, and, legend has it, was found dead in a ditch with a bottle of whisky.
Burns wrote a commentary in an early manuscript of the poem, which is often printed with the poem in modern editions:
'Holy Willie was a rather oldish bachelor elder, in the parish of Mauchline, and much and justly famed for that polemical chattering which ends in tippling orthodoxy, and for that spiritualized bawdry which refines to liquorish devotion. In a sessional process with a gentleman in Mauchline, a Mr. Gavin Hamilton, Holy Willie and his priest, Father Auld, after a full hearing in the Presbytery of Ayr, came off but second best, owing partly to the oratorical powers of Mr. Robert Aiken, Mr. Hamilton's counsel, but chiefly to Mr. Hamilton's being one of the most irreproachable and truly respectable characters in the country. On losing his process, the muse overheard him at his devotions.'
[edit] Glossary
- pet = huff
- ane = one
- a' = all
- sic = such
- sax = six
- fashed = irked
- yestreen = last night
- maun = must
- fou = drunk
- kail = cabbage
- splore = row
- gear = wealth
