Write a short
note on Sir Walter Scott as a novelist.
Or
Write an
essay on the historical novel with special reference to Sir Walter Scott.
Ans:
Historical novels are those that focus on the historical materials
with colour of imagination. Sir Walter Scott may be regarded as a novelist who
is more realistic than the writers of the novel of manners. Walter Scott was
the greatest of all those who attempted the historical novel. The historical
novelist before Walter Scott was thoroughly uninspired for the peculiar art
what they offered was not historical fiction but factious history. Crudity,
lack of knowledge and inspiration and deficient artistry were their main
drawbacks. Most of the novels of Walter Scott were written under the stress of
financial crisis. He could not attain the artistic perfection in his novels
that Jane Austen attains in her six novels dealing with domestic life of
Southern England. The major novels of Walter Scott were- ‘Waverley’ (first historical
novel of Western tradition published in1814), ‘The Antiquary(1816)’, ‘Guy
Mannering’ (1815), ‘Old Mortality’ (1816), ‘Rob Roy’ (1817), ‘The Heart of
Midlothian’(1818), ‘The Bride of Lammermoor(1819)’, ‘The Abbot(1820)’, ‘
Kenilworth(1821)’, ‘The Fortunes of Nigel’(1822), ‘Ivanhoe’ (1820) and ‘The
Talisman’(1825).
Walter Scott was the
first and the last great historical novelist of England who avoided the pitfalls
of his predecessors. Scott is popular for giving a new turn to the historical
novel. He combined in his novels the story of adventure, the realistic sketch
of manners, the saner elements of Gothic Romance and placed them in a
historical background. He presented the events of history from the point of
fiction writer. Scott took Ames and
dates from history primer and transforms them into imaginative literature. In
his famous, “The Fortunes of Nigel” and
in “Kenilworth”, he presents the events of Queen Elizabeth.
Scott is deeply interested in
Scottish life and his novels are successful delinations of Scottish customs,
traditions and manners. Scott is a novelist delighting in adventure and
romance. In his childhood, he enjoyed the tales of adventure, read the works of
Spenser and the romantic fictions of Mrs. Radcliffe and Horace Walpole.
In Scott’s novel, we are
considerably impressed by his heartily humanity. He has infinite sympathy for
the poor people and the humble characters. He is never better or crusty like
Swift. He describes the virtues of humble people and weakness of their
character in a sympathy manner. Scott’s character in his novels attracted our
attention. His characters are not that highest style of moral excellence. He does
not present any psychological character like George Eliot, nor he aims social reform through his characters. His
best characters are drawn from law life and humble people alike. His best
characters are Jeanie Deans, Meg
Merrilies, Peter Peebles, The Antiquary, and they all belong to the lower
state of society. His female characters are not very impressive. Their great
fault is their faultiness. Except Jeanie
Deans and Lucy Ashton, all other heroines of Scott are uninteresting.
Scott’s humour also occupies a
prominent place in his novels. His humour is generally mild and genial. Scott’s
dialogues in the novels are very perfect. Scott reveals his characters through dialogues.
Scott’s style is graceful. He writes like a gentleman. Being a quick and
prolific writer, he could not bring subtle of words and phrases which are found
in the great masters of English prose.
Scott had certain defects also. They
were inevitable because of the rapidity of his production. His novels do not
deeper and they seldom have deep penetrating insight of a great writer. His love
interest flags and his female characters become boring. His historical
characters also appear taken figures at times. But with all these defects Scott
is a great English novelist.
From the above discussion, we
can come to a conclusion that Sir Walter Scott was the foremost
and the greatest in the “Castle of Otranto” and Sophia
Lee in “Race” produced historical fiction but they were not true historical
novelist because they did not present well known the life of the past. Finally,
Scott was the most powerful figure of historical novels or the historical
novels of the 19th century flourished at the hand of Scott.
God Blessing you all, by your dearest & nearest
Podmeswar