Scotland invented England
dunkman
Posts: 19,646
thanks to Fins for the linky
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/au ... k-festival
The novels of Sir Walter Scott are now – in England, at least – almost unread. It is hard to imagine an author simultaneously so famous and so unfashionable, his novels frequently written off as prolix and unbearably dense.
However, according to one writer and critic, the author of Ivanhoe and the Waverley novels was not only crucial in creating the idea of Scotland as it persists today, but also "invented England".
Speaking at the Edinburgh international book festival, Stuart Kelly argued that Scott invented a raft of English national stereotypes. That quintessentially English hero, Robin Hood, for example, owes some of his most famous exploits to the author.
The notion of Robin's arrow splitting that of the Sheriff of Nottingham – which appears in the Disney cartoon – comes direct from Ivanhoe, in which Scott's character Wilfrid performs the deed. The detail, said Kelly, was then incorporated into later versions of the Robin Hood story.
Scott was also, said Kelly, the first person to coin the phrase "the Wars of the Roses" to describe the conflict between the houses of York and Lancaster, while the incident in which Sir Walter Raleigh laid his cloak before Elizabeth I to protect the royal footstep from a muddy puddle comes from Scott's novel Kenilworth.
He was key in making "medievalism the centre of English experience", said Kelly. Without Scott, "there would probably have been a neo-classical houses of parliament rather than a neo-gothic houses of parliament".
Scott, by way of novels such as Ivanhoe, popularised the notion of the centrality of the medieval period to the extent that its architecture was adopted as "the national style" when the new Palace of Westminster came to be built in 1835.
Kelly also pointed out that the former prime minister Tony Blair chose Ivanhoe as his favourite novel when he appeared on the radio show Desert Island Discs in 1996. According to Kelly, in his new book Scott-land: The Man Who Invented A Nation: "It was a canny choice. Blair chose a novel that ostentatiously lauded a national unity. It featured a leader committed to progressive reconciliation – in its synthesis of Norman, Saxon and even Jewish elements – as an allegory of a multicultural Britain."
In terms of his effect on the reputation of his native Scotland, Kelly said Scott "invented a great simulacrum of Scotland; he invented the image of the country". Eighteenth-century accounts of the Highlands characterised them as "treacherous, poor, a hotbed of villains, and barren". Samuel Johnson's A Journey To The Western Islands of Scotland (1775) was "an anthropological exercise to see what backwardness looked like". By contrast, post-Scott the Highlands were seen as "picturesque, romantic, loyal and a hive of industry and inventiveness," said Kelly.
Scott's novels were the "fulcrum" around which Scotland's reputation turned: "The fact that we still have a national identity of any kind is down to Scott."
Scott organised the visit to Edinburgh of George IV in 1822 – the first visit to Scotland by a royal who was not arriving at the head of an army since James I. The king wore a kilt and silk stockings, sparking off a rage for tartan that has lasted to this day.
Scott is also, said Kelly, "vastly underrated as a novelist. He is self-aware, exuberant and experimental." He described Scott as postmodern, and even put up an argument for his being an inventor of "cyber-literature". He said: "In the preface to The Betrothed he imagines a steam-powered novel engine producing books by machinery rather than inspiration."
Although he wrote some "hasty things" and some "mad things", Scott's books "incarnate a deeply humane vision of the world", said Kelly. "None of his lower-class characters is a caricature. To that extent, he makes Dickens seem regressive. He also creates some of the earliest sympathetic portraits of Jewish and Hindu characters. It should be celebrated as a cosmopolitan, enlightened and humane writer. His Toryism was so close to Fabianism you can't put a credit card between them.
"No one else tried to deal in fiction with the entirety of a country – its geography, politics, class structure, religion – not Eliot, and not Dickens. Had he been alive today I think he would have taken on the new multicultural Scotland. He believed you were not necessarily born Scottish, but could become Scottish – as does Edward Waverley."
The writer Joan McAlpine argued that Scott's influence was far from wholly benign. As an arch-conservative, stolidly pro-union, he "perverted and emasculated" the image of Scotland, she said
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/au ... k-festival
The novels of Sir Walter Scott are now – in England, at least – almost unread. It is hard to imagine an author simultaneously so famous and so unfashionable, his novels frequently written off as prolix and unbearably dense.
However, according to one writer and critic, the author of Ivanhoe and the Waverley novels was not only crucial in creating the idea of Scotland as it persists today, but also "invented England".
Speaking at the Edinburgh international book festival, Stuart Kelly argued that Scott invented a raft of English national stereotypes. That quintessentially English hero, Robin Hood, for example, owes some of his most famous exploits to the author.
The notion of Robin's arrow splitting that of the Sheriff of Nottingham – which appears in the Disney cartoon – comes direct from Ivanhoe, in which Scott's character Wilfrid performs the deed. The detail, said Kelly, was then incorporated into later versions of the Robin Hood story.
Scott was also, said Kelly, the first person to coin the phrase "the Wars of the Roses" to describe the conflict between the houses of York and Lancaster, while the incident in which Sir Walter Raleigh laid his cloak before Elizabeth I to protect the royal footstep from a muddy puddle comes from Scott's novel Kenilworth.
He was key in making "medievalism the centre of English experience", said Kelly. Without Scott, "there would probably have been a neo-classical houses of parliament rather than a neo-gothic houses of parliament".
Scott, by way of novels such as Ivanhoe, popularised the notion of the centrality of the medieval period to the extent that its architecture was adopted as "the national style" when the new Palace of Westminster came to be built in 1835.
Kelly also pointed out that the former prime minister Tony Blair chose Ivanhoe as his favourite novel when he appeared on the radio show Desert Island Discs in 1996. According to Kelly, in his new book Scott-land: The Man Who Invented A Nation: "It was a canny choice. Blair chose a novel that ostentatiously lauded a national unity. It featured a leader committed to progressive reconciliation – in its synthesis of Norman, Saxon and even Jewish elements – as an allegory of a multicultural Britain."
In terms of his effect on the reputation of his native Scotland, Kelly said Scott "invented a great simulacrum of Scotland; he invented the image of the country". Eighteenth-century accounts of the Highlands characterised them as "treacherous, poor, a hotbed of villains, and barren". Samuel Johnson's A Journey To The Western Islands of Scotland (1775) was "an anthropological exercise to see what backwardness looked like". By contrast, post-Scott the Highlands were seen as "picturesque, romantic, loyal and a hive of industry and inventiveness," said Kelly.
Scott's novels were the "fulcrum" around which Scotland's reputation turned: "The fact that we still have a national identity of any kind is down to Scott."
Scott organised the visit to Edinburgh of George IV in 1822 – the first visit to Scotland by a royal who was not arriving at the head of an army since James I. The king wore a kilt and silk stockings, sparking off a rage for tartan that has lasted to this day.
Scott is also, said Kelly, "vastly underrated as a novelist. He is self-aware, exuberant and experimental." He described Scott as postmodern, and even put up an argument for his being an inventor of "cyber-literature". He said: "In the preface to The Betrothed he imagines a steam-powered novel engine producing books by machinery rather than inspiration."
Although he wrote some "hasty things" and some "mad things", Scott's books "incarnate a deeply humane vision of the world", said Kelly. "None of his lower-class characters is a caricature. To that extent, he makes Dickens seem regressive. He also creates some of the earliest sympathetic portraits of Jewish and Hindu characters. It should be celebrated as a cosmopolitan, enlightened and humane writer. His Toryism was so close to Fabianism you can't put a credit card between them.
"No one else tried to deal in fiction with the entirety of a country – its geography, politics, class structure, religion – not Eliot, and not Dickens. Had he been alive today I think he would have taken on the new multicultural Scotland. He believed you were not necessarily born Scottish, but could become Scottish – as does Edward Waverley."
The writer Joan McAlpine argued that Scott's influence was far from wholly benign. As an arch-conservative, stolidly pro-union, he "perverted and emasculated" the image of Scotland, she said
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
Kelly also pointed out that the former prime minister Tony Blair chose Ivanhoe as his favourite novel when he appeared on the radio show Desert Island Discs in 1996. According to Kelly, in his new book Scott-land: The Man Who Invented A Nation: "It was a canny choice. Blair chose a novel that ostentatiously lauded a national unity. It featured a leader committed to progressive reconciliation – in its synthesis of Norman, Saxon and even Jewish elements – as an allegory of a multicultural Britain."
woop de doop blair is scottish. i see no canniness.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
<img src="http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx46/tremors25/thrillafixterorange.gif" align="left">
<img src="http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx46/tremors25/thrillafixterblack.gif" align="left">
<img src="http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx46/tremors25/thrillafixterwhite.gif" align="left
<img src="http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx46/tremors25/thefixerthrilla1.gif" align="left">
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
Ah yes but the English perfected them...
:?
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
Everyone knows you can't populate the world the way the Greeks do things...
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
Verona??? it's all surmountable
Dublin 23.08.06 "The beauty of Ireland, right there!"
Wembley? We all believe!
Copenhagen?? your light made us stars
Chicago 07? And love
What a different life
Had I not found this love with you
i wish i could hear a wav. of this with your irish accent. Whatever happened to wav. files, i used to loved those things back in the AOL days.
Verona??? it's all surmountable
Dublin 23.08.06 "The beauty of Ireland, right there!"
Wembley? We all believe!
Copenhagen?? your light made us stars
Chicago 07? And love
What a different life
Had I not found this love with you
ahhh what would you know... you live in England.