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"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. 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 aaabab. Burns used a similar stanza in ''Death and Doctor Hornbrook''. 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. ==Further reading== * Robert Burns ''Robert Burns'' Penguin Classics 1994 ISBN 0-14-042382-6 * David Punter, ''A Companion to the Gothic'' Blackwell Publishing 2001 ISBN 0-631-23199-4 page 73 * Robert Burns, ''The Works of Robert Burns'' Wordsworth Editions 1998 ISBN 1-85326-415-6 especially page 571 * Jerome J McGann, ''Byron and Romanticism'' Cambridge University Press 2002 ISBN 0-521-00722-4 page 269 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Address to the Deil」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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