Holy Willie's Prayer

E156478

"Holy Willie's Prayer" is a satirical Scots-language poem by Robert Burns that mocks religious hypocrisy and self-righteous Calvinism through the dramatic monologue of a sanctimonious church elder.

All labels observed (1)

Label Occurrences
Holy Willie's Prayer canonical 1

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (47)

Predicate Object
instanceOf dramatic monologue
poem
satirical poem
approximateCompositionPeriod late 18th century
author Robert Burns
characterType sanctimonious church elder
countryOfOrigin Scotland
criticizes double standards in morality
religious hypocrisy
self-righteous Calvinism
culturalSignificance classic of Scottish satirical poetry
frequently studied in Burns scholarship
form stanzaic verse
genre satire
hasTone bitterly humorous
ironic
mocking
language Scots
literaryForm dramatic monologue
literaryMovement Scottish literature
mainCharacter Holy Willie
meter standard Habbie stanza
narrativeVoice first person
notableFor ironic use of prayer form
sharp social criticism
use of Scots dialect
originalLanguage Scots
parodies Calvinist theology
Presbyterian piety
partOf Robert Burns's satirical works
placeInCanon major work of Robert Burns
religiousContext Calvinist doctrine
Presbyterian
surface form: Presbyterianism
setting 18th-century Scottish Presbyterian context
subject divine grace and election
personal sin and public virtue
religious authority
theme Calvinism
Phariseeism
moral corruption
predestination
religious hypocrisy
self-righteousness
usesDevice colloquial diction
dramatic irony
persona poem
writtenBy Robert Burns

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Robert Burns notableWork Holy Willie's Prayer