Assess Scott’s Contribution to Historical Novels.

Assess Scott’s Contribution to Historical Novels.

Popularity of Sir Walter Scott chiefly rests on his historical novels. He is often credited as the father of the historical novel. His 27 historical novels established the standard structure of the genre and greatly influenced later writers. In Scott´s day, Scotland had become settled and civilized. Edinburgh in particular -the Athens of the North- boasted a society as cultured as any in Europe, and had produced such internationally renowned thinkers as the philosopher David Hume and the economist Adam Smith. Yet in 1745, only a generation before Scott´s birth, wild Highlanders had risen for Bonnie Prince Charlie, occupied the Lowlands, and invaded England.

Scott was fascinated by the Scottish past, its folklore, historical figures, the conflicts between clans or religious groups: Waverley, for instance, goes back to the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, Rob Roy to 1715, at the time when the Jacobites, partisans of the exiled Stuart kings, were about to rise in arms, Old Mortality to a sect of strict Covenanters under Charles II, Ivanhoe turns to English history - the rivalry between the Saxons and the Normans under Richard I, Quentin Durward is centered on Louis XI of France and his intrigues.

Scott contributed to the revival of the chivalrous spirit in the late 18C and early 19C. Historians of the time approached the past in anew, objective fashion and began to study medieval documents and artefacts with scientific curiosity. Whereas the rationalists of the Englishtment showed a scholarly attitude to the distant past, it was the very distance and mystery of the Middle Ages which appealed to the Romantics of the late 18C............................................................................................................

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