The creative and life path of the famous Scottish poet and lyricist Robert Burns is closely connected with peasant labor. This is not surprising since Burns was of peasant origin and never broke away from his roots, all his life working as a plowman. That is why Burns' poetry conveys the feelings of ordinary people who have earned their daily bread by righteous labor. It has faith in the future of the common people too. With all this Burns' verses are sanguine and at times filled with cheerful tricks and subtle wit.

 Burns held to progressive views, his beliefs were based on Enlightenment philosophy, the ideals of equality and freedom, he supported the French and American revolutions too. Moreover, when the revolution caught fire in France, Burns bought a cannon for his small savings and sent it to the French freedom fighters.

 In Burns' poems one can see creative searches, which were peculiar to the literature of pre-romanticism, but at the same time, they go beyond the boundaries of the pre-romantic tradition. To some extent in the works of this poet, the imprint of sentimentalism can be seen too. They also show the features characteristic of romanticism. Summarizing his genre preferences, it can be said that Burns worked within the framework of Enlightenment realism, which was generously enriched by the folklore tradition.

 Burns wrote not only in English language but also in Scots dialect. His poems, imbued with love for freedom, occupy a very important place in English literature both because of their artistic value, and because they markedly influenced the formation of the revolutionary romanticism of Byron and Shelley.

 Burns worked simultaneously in several genres, successfully writing drinking songs, satirical poems, love songs, epigrams, civic lyrics and friendly messages. The characters of his poems were a smith, a plowman, a shepherd, a coal miner.

 Burns also paid much attention to the theme of friendship. For example, in the poem John Anderson, My Jo (1789), he glorifies friendship that brightens up a long and difficult life. Burns sincerely believes that the common people have a great moral strength, to the immortality of which he dedicated his allegorical poem John Barleycorn (1776).