Elise\’s Blog

In his poem “Oh, My Love is Like a Red, Red, Rose,” Robert Burns speaks in the first person, using the pronoun “I” and the possessive pronoun “my” frequently. His audience is the person that he is in love with, and the reader can figure this out because of the first line in the second stanza, which says, “So fair art thou, my bonny lass.” The use of the phrase “art thou” is like saying “are you,” which therefore lets the reader know that he is speaking directly to someone.

Burns uses lots of similes and metaphors in his poem. The first two lines, (the first line also being the title) “Oh my love is like a red, red, rose/ That’s newly sprung in June,” is a simile that compares his love for the person to whom he is speaking to a rose. Roses are commonly used when talking about or showing love for someone, so this simile is very simple to understand.