{"id":3218,"date":"2010-11-09T21:49:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-10T02:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3218"},"modified":"2018-08-07T16:13:11","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T20:13:11","slug":"19281-walter-scott-waverley-or-tis-sixty-years-hence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3218","title":{"rendered":"19281. (Walter Scott) Waverley, or \u2018Tis Sixty Years Hence"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Wal\u00adter Scott pub\u00adlished the first of his nov\u00adels, Waver\u00adley<\/em>, in 1814, he was already well-known as a poet. The book was so spec\u00adtac\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly suc\u00adcess\u00adful that it launched him on a career as a nov\u00adel\u00adist known in every cor\u00adner of the world. His influ\u00adence in 19th Cen\u00adtu\u00adry Cana\u00adda, for instance, was such that nobody with pre\u00adten\u00adtion to edu\u00adca\u00adtion was with\u00adout a set of \u201cWaver\u00adley nov\u00adels\u201d. When I worked on var\u00adi\u00adous Ontario farms, I often saw them in Vic\u00adto\u00adri\u00adan-era farm\u00adhous\u00ades. I found a com\u00adplete set in a barn, for which I nego\u00adti\u00adat\u00aded pay\u00adment in hay bal\u00ading. That set (gor\u00adgeous\u00adly bound) is long gone, but now I have anoth\u00ader, acquired in a small Ontario town. Many of the scenes and char\u00adac\u00adters of Scot\u00adt\u2019s nov\u00adels are pre\u00adserved in Toron\u00adto street names. Any\u00adone famil\u00adiar with Cana\u00addi\u00adan his\u00adto\u00adry knows that in the 19th Cen\u00adtu\u00adry, its lit\u00ader\u00adary icons were, in descend\u00ading order of impor\u00adtance: the Bible, Rob\u00adby Burns*, Shake\u00adspeare, Scott, and Dickens.<\/span><\/p>\n

Peo\u00adple are now more like\u00adly to read one of the lat\u00ader nov\u00adels, such as Rob Roy<\/em>, or Ivan\u00adhoe<\/em>, if they read any Scott at all. These are more accom\u00adplished, and clos\u00ader to mod\u00adern taste. But it\u2019s worth look\u00ading at his first effort, because it demon\u00adstrates what a rev\u00ado\u00adlu\u00adtion in writ\u00ading Scott ini\u00adti\u00adat\u00aded. The first five chap\u00adters are writ\u00adten more or less in the picaresque style of Field\u00ading (a Scot-hater) or Smol\u00adlett (a Scot). I sus\u00adpect that Scott stopped, unsat\u00adis\u00adfied, and resumed writ\u00ading after a hia\u00adtus, because by the sixth chap\u00adter, the read\u00ader starts to expe\u00adri\u00adence some\u00adthing more like the con\u00adtin\u00adu\u00adous flow of \u201cyou are there\u201d descrip\u00adtion that you expect in lat\u00ader prose. By chap\u00adter 24, we are get\u00adting stuff like this:<\/span><\/p>\n

The var\u00adi\u00adous tribes assem\u00adbled, each at the pibroch of their native clan, and each head\u00aded by their patri\u00adar\u00adchal ruler. Some, who had already begun to retire, were seen wind\u00ading up the hills, or descend\u00ading the pass\u00ades which led to the scene of the action, the sound of their bag\u00adpipes dying upon the ear. Oth\u00aders made still a mov\u00ading pic\u00adture upon the nar\u00adrow plain, form\u00ading var\u00adi\u00adous chang\u00adful groups, their feath\u00aders and loose plaids wav\u00ading in the morn\u00ading breeze, and their arms glit\u00adter\u00ading in the sun.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You won\u2019t find any\u00adthing like that in Field\u00ading. Scott was a great styl\u00adis\u00adtic ino\u00adva\u00adtor. You can feel the eigh\u00adteenth cen\u00adtu\u00adry drop\u00adping behind you as you read, and the nine\u00adteenth cen\u00adtu\u00adry com\u00ading into view. He was also a pro\u00adfound inno\u00adva\u00adtor in lit\u00ader\u00adary ideas, and in social con\u00adscience. Sto\u00adries about the past, by con\u00adven\u00adtion, had always been set in clas\u00adsi\u00adcal antiq\u00adui\u00adty, a kind of sym\u00adbol\u00adic place that was not real\u00adly meant to be the \u201cpast\u201d, as we think of it now, but as a high\u00ader plane of real\u00adi\u00adty. With Waver\u00adley<\/em>, Scott invent\u00aded the his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcal nov\u00adel, and to boot he set it in a peri\u00adod whose polit\u00adi\u00adcal con\u00adflicts were still fresh and ten\u00adder wounds in the social fab\u00adric of the British Isles. He dared to make the High\u00adlanders of Scot\u00adland, hereto\u00adfore only con\u00adsid\u00adered unin\u00adter\u00adest\u00ading sav\u00adages (even by the Scots in the Low\u00adlands), the cen\u00adtral char\u00adac\u00adters of an epic tale. The events of the Jaco\u00adbite Ris\u00ading, he revealed to a sur\u00adprised world, were every bit as wor\u00adthy of artis\u00adtic rep\u00adre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtion as the bat\u00adtle of Ther\u00admopy\u00adlae, or the death of Cae\u00adsar. This was inno\u00adva\u00adtion enough, but he went much fur\u00adther. Scott was, as far as I can tell, the first writer of Eng\u00adlish prose to describe peas\u00adants, ser\u00advants, and high\u00adland out\u00adlaws with exact\u00adly the same respect and sym\u00adpa\u00adthy as the upper class\u00ades. Before that, it was bare\u00adly acknowl\u00adedged that they were human, let alone that they might have indi\u00advid\u00adual char\u00adac\u00adters, inter\u00adests, and emo\u00adtions. Scott describes all his char\u00adac\u00adters, of what\u00adev\u00ader social stra\u00adtum, with the same objec\u00adtive inter\u00adest. This now seems to us an obvi\u00adous desider\u00ada\u00adtum, but when Scott did it, it was revolutionary. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

* To illus\u00adtrate this, I would point to the park two blocks south of where I live. In the late 19th cen\u00adtu\u00adry, it was the cen\u00adtre of the city\u2019s most pres\u00adti\u00adgeous dis\u00adtrict. Any\u00adwhere else in the for\u00admer British Empire, it would have a stat\u00adue of Queen Vic\u00adto\u00adria. But in Toron\u00adto, it has a huge stat\u00adue of Burns. The name beneath it reads only \u201cBurns\u201d \u2014 no first name being thought necessary.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>

An ear\u00adly tint\u00aded pho\u00adto of Toron\u00adto\u2019s Burns statue\u2026<\/p><\/div>\n

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\"...<\/a>

\u2026 and a recent one.<\/p><\/div>\n

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There are Burns mon\u00adu\u00adments scat\u00adtered about, with a remark\u00adable vari\u00adety of rep\u00adre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtion. The one in Mon\u00adtre\u00adal, as big as the one in Toron\u00adto, is younger-look\u00ading and man\u00adnish\u00adly sexy. One in Ade\u00adlaide, Aus\u00adtralia makes him real\u00adly Oscar Wilde-ey, with a baby face and cute pose (I\u2019m not sure what they were think\u00ading). One in Dunedin, New Zealand makes him look like Moses, and one in Lon\u00addon makes him look like a chub\u00adby businessman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Wal\u00adter Scott pub\u00adlished the first of his nov\u00adels, Waver\u00adley, in 1814, he was already well-known as a poet. The book was so spec\u00adtac\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly suc\u00adcess\u00adful that it launched him on a career as a nov\u00adel\u00adist known in every cor\u00adner of the \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bq-reading-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3218"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3222,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions\/3222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}