Narrative structure in the novels of Sir Walter Scott 9783111343174, 9783110991673

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DE P R O P R I E T A T I B U S LITTERARUM edenda curat

C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD Indiana University

Series Practica, 6

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE IN THE NOVELS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT

by

M A R I A N H. CUSAC Erskine

College

1969

MOUTON THE HAGUE · PARIS

© Copyright 1969 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 73-80839

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.

I've just read Pickwick, by Dickens. Do you know it? There are some splendid parts; but what defective structure! All English writers are like that. Walter Scott excepted, they lack plan. This is intolerable for us Latins. Gustave Flaubert (Letter to George Sand, July 12, 1872)

PREFACE

This study is an analysis of the narrative structure of Sir Walter Scott's novels. The first chapter includes a review of the scholarly comments on the subject and some of Scott's own statements about it, along with definitions of terms to be used. The second and third chapters deal with the novels themselves, under the headings of the "romances" and the "chronicles". In the fourth chapter the following matters are analyzed as indicative of the world-view underlying the works: the mediocre hero, his relationship to history, and his struotural function; the theme of initiation; and the problems of determinism, the "two cultures", and the relationship between past and present. The fifth chapter contains a summary and presents conclusions about Scott's ability to construct a plot and about the meaning of the narrative structure of the Waverley group as a whole. I want to express my gratitude to Professor Η. K. Russell of the University of North Carolina for his invaluable help in the preparation of this work. His incisive suggestions always pointed the way to greater clarity, and I am specifically indebted to him for the terms "defining event" and "definition, confirmation, culmination" as used in Chapter I and throughout. Professors Charles E. Edge and Albrecht B. Strauss were kind enough to read the manuscript and offer useful advice, and Mr. J. Scott Byrd devoted many hours to a meticulous proofreading of the typescript. To each of them my thanks are offered. I am also grateful to Erskine College for their encouragement and support in the form of a grant which helped make publication possible. Marian H. Cusac

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PHEFACE I.

7

STRUCTUBE D E F I N E D

11

T H E ROMANCES

25

Comic Romances Tragic Romances

27 40

III.

T H E CHRONICLES

52

IV.

T H E MEDIOCBE H E B O AND HISTORY

64

Function of the Protagonists Function and Meaning of History

73 87

II.

V.

S U M M A R Y AND CONCLUSIONS: STRUCTURE AS R H E T O R I C

.

96

APPENDIX A :

List of Scott's Fiction

106

APPENDIX B :

Classification of Novels

108

APPENDIX C :

Significantly Recurring Elements .

.

110

APPENDIX

D: Comic Romances Having Crucial Structure

113

APPENDIX

Ε: Comic Romances Having Climactic Structure .

115

APPENDIX

F: Summary of the Chronicles not Discussed in

APPENDIX G :

Chapter III

116

Thematically Significant Contrast of Cultures .

118

BIBLIOGRAPHY

120

INDEX

125

I STRUCTURE DEFINED

Sir Walter Scott was without doubt the most widely acclaimed novelist of his day and has been one of the most influential literary figures from 1814 to the present. For nearly two decades, a novel which bore "By the Author of Waverley" or the name of Scott on its title page was assured of a wide sale and a generally favorable critical reception, a situation which continued to obtain for the better part of a century. According to Hillhouse, There is no doubt at all of Scott's tremendous popularity with a broad reading public until nearly 1900, nor of his secure position with the critics for as long or nearly as long. One may dismiss as a critical commonplace his popularity in his own time, with the reminder, however, that it included, on the authority of Carlyle and others, the very highest and most critical levels of the reading public. The merely popular best-selling novelist of today does not presumably include among his devoted readers men like Goethe, Hazlitt, DeQuincey, Byron, Jeffrey, and Coleridge; neither did he (or she) attract and hold such readers a century ago. 1

Scott, however, not only attracted them and held them; he also created a new literary genre and has long been recognized, in another critical commonplace, as "the father of the historical novel". Saintsbury calls attention to "the singular and miraculous fashion in which Sir Walter, taking a kind of writing which had . . . been tried, or at least tried at, for more than two thousand years, and which had never yet been got to run smoothly on its own lines to its own end, by one stroke effected what the efforts of those two millenniums had been bungling and balking themselves over".2 The manner in which Scott brought to sudden and complete fruition a type which had been but feebly foreshadowed for so long assures his continued consideration as a figure of prime importance in the history of the novel. 1

James T. Hillhouse, The Waverley Novels and Their Critics (Minneapolis, 1936), p. 331. 2 George Saintsbury, "The Historical Novel", in The Collected Essays and Papers of George Saintsbury, III (London, 1923), 20.

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Neither of these points - Scott's popularity and his importance as the molder of a new form - requires additional emphasis. They are well established. What does call for attention is the shape which this new form took, that is, the structure of the novels themselves. A man who in eighteen years produced thirty-two pieces of prose fiction, twenty-six of them full-length novels, must have had, either consciously or unconsciously, some underlying concept of form in fiction. It is my purpose here to examine the twenty-six novels in order to determine, primarily, the nature of their narrative structure, and secondarily, the function of the fictional heroes and the historical characters within this pattern,3 and then to present conclusions regarding Scott's place as a writer of what he termed "romantic composition".4 There has been no detailed study of the structure of "the Waverley novels".5 Criticism of a general sort has of course been available since their appearance,® first in reviews in the contemporary periodicals and later in the century in more extensive critical estimates by Carlyle, Bagehot, Leslie Stephen, and others. These estimates, however, tend to be extremely vague, at least by modern standards, and offer little help in understanding the structural technique either of any particular novel or of the Waverley group as a whole. One of Bagehot's remarks may be taken as an example: "The plots produced, so to say, by the pen of the writer as he passes over the events, are likely to have a freshness and a suitableness to those events, which is not possessed by the inferior ' The six shorter works - "The Highland Widow", "The Two Drovers", "The Surgeon's Daughter", "My Aunt Margaret's Mirror", "The Tapestried Chamber", and "Death of the Laird's Jock" - will not be considered except incidentally. All of these pieces have far greater affinities with the short story than with the novel. They appeared in 1827 and 1828, coming between Woodstock (1826) and The Fair Maid of Perth (1828). 4 Scott's "General Preface to the Waverley Novels", in Waverley, p. xxiii. The edition of the novels which will be used in this paper is the "Riverside Rdition" of Scott's Complete Works, 25 vols (Boston, 1923). For the reader's convenience in locating references in other editions of the novels, chapter numbers will be given along with the volume and page numbers. 5 This term is used loosely today, as it was in Scott's time, to refer both to the novels by "the Author of Waverley" and to those which, because of the revelation of his identity in 1826 at the time of the failure of James and John Ballantyne, subsequently bore Scott's name. The six shorter works (see note 3, above) also have been customarily published with "the Waverley novels". Here the term refers to the twenty-six novels under consideration. See Appendix A for a chronological list of Scott's fiction. 4 See Hillhouse's succinct treatment, pp. 40-153.

STRUCTURE DEFINED

13 7

writers who make up a mechanical plot before they commence." Such a comment is valid; it is a just reflection of both the technique and the effect of many of Scott's works; but it is of little use as an aid to understanding what the technique and the effect actually are, and in this deficiency it is typical of much of the earlier criticism. Saintsbury is slightly more specific when he points out what he considers to be the two faults of Scott: that he allows some persons to be elaborately presented, then dropped; and that he hurries his conclusions.8 In fact, says Saintsbury, "Plot, in the strict sense, he never achieved, and very seldom even attempted to achieve it. . . . It may almost be said that Scott never winds up a plot artfully." 9 Nevertheless he indicates, in what seems to be a contradictory judgment, that Scott was perfectly well aware of what he was about, that he did not blunder into his successes, and that evidence for these assertions may be found both in and out of the novels.10 Among later critics, John Buchan gives a favorable opinion of the novels as well-composed works of art, even while stressing Scott's lack of a pre-conceived plan: The stories built themselves up half-consciously in his mind, while his fancy ran free. Hence his structure was not an artificial thing beaten out by laborious cogitation, but an organic development proceeding slowly and naturally like the growth of a tree. In none of the greater novels are we offended by any jerking of the wires.... The novel, when he wrote, was still in process of changing from the rambling, inconsequent, picaresque tradition. B u t . . . [in Scott's novels] the main drama is nearly always well shaped, though that drama is not always coterminous with the whole story. The novels, it seems to me, do in a large measure achieve an artistic unity.11 Buchan's comment, emphasizing the Romantic organicism12 inherent in the novels, is echoed in part by Lukäcs when he points out that the 7 Walter Bagehot, "The Waverley Novels", in The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, ed. Mrs. Russell Barrington, III (London, 1915), 71. 8 The English Novel (London, 1913), p. 209. The latter observation had been made at least as early as 1816 by Scott himself, when, in the Conclusion to Old Mortality, he indicated that he was "of the opinion that a history, growing already vapid, is but dully crutched up by a detail of circumstances which every reader must have anticipated, even though the author exhaust on them every flowery epithet in the language" (II, 292). See p. 18, below, for the complete quotation. • "The Historical Novel", p. 26. 10 The English Novel, pp. 207-208. For such evidence see esp. the Introduction to The Fortunes of Nigel. 11 Sir Walter Scott (New York, 1932), p. 340. 12 See Morse Peckham, "Toward a Theory of Romanticism", ΡML A, LXVI, 5-23 for a concise discussion of the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century cosmological shift from "static mechanism" to "dynamic organicism".

14

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structure of the novels is organic and thus parallels history. He says, "Balzac understood this secret of Scott's composition. Scott's novels, he said, marched towards the great heroes in the same way as history itself had done when it required their appearance." 13 In a comment pertinent to structure in the classical sense, Muir states that most Scott novels consist largely of middle;14 but he gives no detailed evidence for his generalization. In direct opposition to this statement but with the same lack of substantiation, Feuchtwanger asserts that "Scott is a master of the plot and creates tension by the most legitimate means. The main thread of his plot is always solid and sound." 15 Thus the vagueness and occasional contradictions of the critical comments on the structure of Scott's novels clearly indicate the need for more particular treatment. A few such studies have been made. For example in "Waverley and the 'Unified Design' ", S. Stewart Gordon undertakes a serious examination of the structure of this novel and argues convincingly that when it is considered from the viewpoint of a coherent structure, which he demonstrates, many of its elements which may have appeared irrelevant fall into place as logical parts of its total "unified design".16 And in an unpublished master's thesis Michael Shane Reynolds points out that "Scott's 'Scottish novels' usually have two plots: a conventional love plot and a second plot based on 'the conflict arising from the historical situation' ";17 in the light of this contention, he then analyzes the structure of Waverley. Such detailed studies, however, are indeed few. It is therefore my purpose to determine whether there is an underlying form common to the Waverley group, the recognition of which will clarify both the method of the individual novels and the meaning of the novels as a whole. Scott was himself one of his own most prolific and sensitive critics. 13

Georg Lukäcs, The Historical Novel, trans. Hannah and Stanley Mitchell (London, 1962), pp. 38-39. 14 Edwin Muir, "Walter Scott: The Man and the Writer", Sir Walter Scott Lectures, 1940-1948 (Edinburgh, 1950), p. 70. 15 Lion Feuchtwanger, The House of Desdemona, or The Laurels and Limitations of Historical Fiction, trans. Harold R. Basilius (Detroit, 1963), p. 46. μ ELH, XVIII (June, 1951), 107-122. 17 "Critical Opinions of Scott as an Historical Novelist with an Analysis of WaverleyUniversity of North Carolina (1960), p. 14. The phrase "the conflict arising from the historical situation" is from C. Hugh Holman's clear and useful definition of the historical novel, in "William Gilmore Simms's Theory and Practice of Historical Fiction". Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of North Carolina (1949), p. 87. See also Holman's article, "The Influence of Scott and Cooper on Simms", American Literature, ΧΧΠΙ (May, 1951), 203-218.

STRUCTURE DEFINED

15

From an early date, he was well aware of his shortcomings as a skillful weaver of plot, and he commented frequently and incisively on the structure of his own novels and those of others, his remarks being cast sometimes in a humorous vein, as in the dialogues between the author18 and Captain Clutterbuck, and at other times in the form of serious discourse, as in The Lives of the Novelists and in many of the Introductions to the individual novels.19 Scott's attitude toward structure seems to have been occasionally cavalier. It is well known that he sometimes changed his stories to accord with suggestions made by his publishers, particularly James Ballantyne. To avoid possible offense to readers, he made drastic and probably damaging alterations in the love-story in St. Ronan's WeiI;20 and in Ivanhoe to explain bringing a character back from the dead for no apparent reason, he says, "The resuscitation of Athelstane has been much criticised, as too violent a breach of probability, even for a work of such fantastic character. It was a tour-de-force, to which the Author was compelled to have recourse by the vehement entreaties of his friend and printer, who was inconsolable on the Saxon being conveyed to the tomb." 21 An author willing to treat his novel in such a manner at the whim, it would seem, of his publisher, lends strong support to the longstanding critical accusation of a haphazard attitude toward his work, as does the often-quoted comment on Waverley: "The tale . . . was put together with so little care that I cannot boast of having sketched any distinct plan of the work." 22 And yet the author can tell Captain Clutterbuck that he has at least tried to plan: I have repeatedly laid down my future work to scale, divided it into volumes and chapters, and endeavoured to construct a story which I meant should evolve itself gradually and strikingly, maintain suspense, and stimulate curiosity; and which, finally, should terminate in a striking catastrophe. But I think there is a demon w h o seats himself on the feather of my pen when 18

In The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago, 1961), Wayne C. Booth has pointed out that each work of fiction has an "implied author" that is "different from the implied authors we meet in other men's works" (pp. 70-71), and has warned of the danger of assuming that the attitudes of the implied author, regardless of whether he labels himself "Author", equate with those of the man himself, be he Fielding or Scott or Thackeray. This problem will be discussed further in Chapter V. 19 In "The Waverley Romances" in English Literature, 1815-1832 (Oxford, 1963), Ian Jack states that "In the Lives of the Novelists and elsewhere Scott wrote more about the practice of fiction than any of his predecessors" (p. 202). 29 See Hillhouse, p. 38, note 39; et passim. " Ivanhoe, II, 356, note 15. 21 Waverley, Introduction, pp. xxiv-xxv.

16

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I begin to write, and leads it astray from the purpose. Characters expand under my hand; incidents are multiplied; the story lingers, while the materials increase; my regular mansion turns out a Gothic anomaly, and the work is closed long before I have attained the point I proposed.23 The same idea is presented more succinctly when the author says, "It may pass for one good reason for not writing a play, that I cannot form a plot."24 The "demon", his enthusiasm for character and incident, was too strong for him. Again in dialogue with the Captain, the author protests that a work as structurally ideal as that which the Captain describes has never been written: Captain. And the story is, I hope, natural and probable; commencing strikingly, proceeding naturally, ending happily, like the course of a famed river, which gushes from the mouth of some obscure and romantic grotto; then gliding on, never pausing, never precipitating its course, visiting, as it were, by natural instinct, whatever worthy subjects of interest are presented by the country through which it passes; widening and deepening in interest as it flows on; and at length arriving at the final catastrophe as at some mighty haven, where ships of all kinds strike sail and yard? Author. Hey! hey! what the deuce is all this? Why, 'tis Ercles's vein, and it would require some one much more like Hercules than I to produce a story which should gush, glide, and never pause, and visit, and widen, and deepen, and all the rest on't. I should be chin-deep in the grave, man, before I had done with my task; and, in the meanwhile, all the quirks and quiddities which I might have devised for my reader's amusement would lie rotting in my gizzard, like Sancho's suppressed witticisms, when he was under his master's displeasure. There never was a novel written on this plan while the world stood. Captain. Pardon me - Tom Jones.25 In an extended serious discourse on structure in the novel, Scott, while again commenting on the excellence of Tom Jones, offers further justification for the methods of those authors who find themselves unable to equal Fielding the master; but he admits that attention must be paid to the "happy combination" of the story: And it is thus in the world that, when human prudence has done its best, some general, perhaps national, event destroys the schemes of the individual, as the casual touch of a more powerful being sweeps away the web of the spider. Many excellent romances have been composed in this view of human life, where the hero is conducted through a variety of detached scenes, in which n 24

*5

The Fortunes of Nigel, Introduction, p. xxxi. Ibid., p. xxxii. Ibid., p. xxv.

STRUCTURE DEFINED

17

various agents appear and disappear, without, perhaps, having any permanent influence on the progress of the story. Such is the structure of Gil Bias, Roderick Random, and the lives and adventures of many other heroes, who are described as running through different stations of life, and encountering various adventures, which are only witnessed by the same individual, whose identity unites them together, as the string of a necklace links the beads, which are otherwise detached. But though such an unconnected course of adventures is what most frequently occurs in nature, yet the province of the romance writer being artificial, there is more required from him than a mere compliance with the simplicity of reality; just as we demand from the scientific gardener that he shall arrange, in curious knots and artificial parterres, the flowers which "nature boon" distributes freely on hill and dale. Fielding, accordingly, in most of his novels, but especially in Tom Jones, his chef-d'oeuvre, has set the distinguished example of a story regularly built and consistent in all its parts, in which nothing occurs, and scarce a personage is introduced, that has not some share in tending to advance the catastrophe. To demand equal correctness and felicity in those who may follow in the track of that illustrious novelist would be to fetter too much the power of giving pleasure, by surrounding it with penal rules; since of this sort of light literature it may be especially said, Tout genre est permis hors le genre ennuyeux. Still, however, the more closely and happily the story is combined, and the more natural and felicitous the catastrophe, the nearer such a composition will approach the perfection of the novelist's art; nor can an author neglect this branch of his profession without incurring proportional censure.2« In spite of this admitted necessity of paying some attention to plot, Scott thinks, in the last analysis, that to have a tightly fitted narrative structure is in no way an absolute requisite for a successful novel. There is, in the first place, the unanswerable argument that "life is not like that". Without becoming embroiled in the question of the relationship between life and art, one may note the quotation immediately above, and an additional comment: The incidents [of The Monastery] were inartificially huddled together. There was no part of the intrigue to which deep interest was found to apply; and the conclusion was brought about, not by incidents arising out of the story itself, but in consequence of public transactions with which the narrative has little connexion, and which the reader had little opportunity to become acquainted with. This, if not a positive fault, was yet a great defect in the Romance. It is true, that not only the practice of some great authors in this department, but even the general course of human life itself, may be quoted in favour of this more 2e

The Monastery,

Introduction, pp. xxvii-xxviii.

18

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obvious, and less artificial, practice of arranging a narrative. It is seldom that the same circle of personages who have surrounded an individual at his first outset in life continue to have an interest in his career till his fate comes to a crisis.27 In addition, the desires of the impatient reader must be considered. This was, Scott thought, a possible justification for the wide-spread complaint against the "huddling up" of incidents at the conclusion of a typical Waveriey novel. In his persona of the author he said, I am sensible that, in consequence of the liberty of curtailment you [Captain Clutterbuck] have allowed me, some parts of the story have been huddled up without the necessary details. But, after all, it is better that the travellers should have to step over a ditch than to wade through a morass: that the reader should have to suppose what may easily be inferred than be obliged to creep through pages of dull explanation.28 A similar thought expressed in a different image is found in a statement by Peter Pattieson, the putative author of Tales of My Landlord: "Really, madam", said I, "you must be aware that every volume of a narrative turns less and less interesting as the author draws to a conclusion; just like your tea, which, though excellent hyson, is necessarily weaker and more insipid in the last cup. Now, as I think the one is by no means improved by the luscious lump of half-dissolved sugar usually found at the bottom of it, so I am of the opinion that a history, growing already vapid, is but dully crutched up by a detail of circumstances which every reader must have anticipated, even though the author exhaust on them every flowery epithet in the language." ϊ β In a more serious tone, and within a novel itself, Scott addressed the reader directly on the same point: But before entering upon a subject of proverbial delay, I must remind my reader of the progress of a stone rolled downhill by an idle truant b o y . . . ; it moves at first slowly, avoiding by inflection every obstacle of the least importance; but when it has attained its full impulse, and draws near the conclusion of its career, it smokes and thunders down, taking a rood at every spring, clearing hedge and ditch like a Yorkshire huntsman, and becoming most furiously rapid in its course when it is nearest to being consigned to resit forever. Even such is the course of a narrative like that which you are perusing. The earlier events are studiously dwelt upon, that you, kind reader, may be introduced to the character rather by narrative than by the duller medium of direct description; but when the story draws near its close, we hurry over the circumstances, however important, which your imagina17 88

"

Ibid., p. xxvi. The Abbot, Introductory Epistle, p. xvtii. Old Mortality, Π, 292; Conclusion.

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19

tion must have forestalled, and leave you to suppose those things which it would be abusing your patience to relate at length. 30

Furthermore, tradition lends weight to the argument for the acceptability of the novel whose structure is less balanced than that of Tom Jones. In The Lives of the Novelists, Scott says, "Few of the merits which a novel usually boasts are to be preferred to an interesting and well-arranged story. But then this merit, however great, has never been considered as indispensable to a fictitious narrative." 31 And finally, in a statement containing a question often quoted by Scott and often applied to his work by others, he points out that a perfectly organized novel is a rara avis indeed: In fine, whatever may be the vote of the severer critics, we are afraid that many of the labourers in this walk of literature will conclude with Bayes, "What is the use of the plot but to bring in fine things?" And, truly, if the fine things really deserve the name, we think there is pedantry in censuring the works where they occur, merely because productions of genius are not also adorned with a regularity of conception, carrying skilfully forward the conclusion of the story, which we may safely pronounce one of the rarest attainments of art. 32

All in all, Scott seems to have been relatively satisfied with the way in which he constructed his novels. As David Daiches has pointed out, "Scott was never the obsessed artist, but the happy writer".33 A minor point of Scott's criticism of his works is noteworthy as reflecting, in all likelihood, a part of his thought about structure: he was concerned with the pictorial or scenic quality which he felt to be a necessary part of moments of intensity in the action of the novel. As Ian Jack has observed, "Scott's imagination was highly visual and it seems likely that he sometimes conceived of individual episodes, or even whole scenes, primarily in visual terms."34 Indeed, in a comment within one of his works, Scott states, "We profess to present to the reader not a precise detail of circumstances, according to their order and date, but a series of pictures, endeavouring to present the most striking incidents before the eye or imagination of those whom it may concern."35 And in the first chapter of another novel, Dick Tinto, a painter, says to Peter Pattieson, the supposed author of Tales of My Landlord (neither of whom figures in the story itself): 30 31 32 33 34 33

Waverley, II, 292-293; Ch. 70. Everyman Edition (London, n.d.), p. 331. Ibid., p. 332. "Scott's Achievement as a Novelist", Literary Essays (Edinburgh, 1956), p. 119. Sir Walter Scott (London, 1958), p. 27. The Betrothed, p. 377; Ch. 29.

20

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Y o u have accustomed yourself so much to these creeping twilight details of yours, that you are become incapable of receiving that instant and vivid flash of conviction which darts on the mind from seeing the happy and expressive combinations of a single scene, and which gathers from the position, attitude, and countenance of the moment, not only the history of the past lives of the personages represented, and the nature of the business on which they are immediately engaged, but lifts even the veil of futurity, and affords a shrewd guess at their future fortunes. 3 8

One of Scott's shorter works, "Death of the Laird's Jock", was in fact written in response to a request to "point out a subject for the pencil"37 and quite clearly exemplifies that "vivid flash of conviction which darts on the mind" from the visualization of an intensely dramatic moment. In speaking of this aspect of the Waverley novels, George Edward Woodberry states that . . . the progress of the tale is managed by a succession of scenes. Scott's greatest talent of execution lay in the depicting of these scenes; if he was not a dramatist, there was something theatrical in his faculty, and though he could not write a play, no one could better stage an incident. These scenes are of all kinds; indoor scenes with the fidelity of Dutch masters, such as the hut in "Rob Roy" or N o m a ' s dwelling; out-of-door scenes of infinite variety like the vengeance of Rob's wife or the drover's foray at the end; scenes of all degrees of spirited action and emotional play, or simple instances of noble behaviour like the farewell of the prince in "Redgauntlet". 38

Recognition of Scott's interest in the pictorial quality of fiction, then, may help illuminate a study of the way in which he organized his novels. In this study, the term "narrative structure" is used rather than "plot", because the latter term, as is indicated by Saintsbury, for example, implies "the strict sense",39 that is, a narrative having a beginning, a middle, and an end, and having a crisis or turning point. "Narrative structure", however, is a more general term; it includes not only the traditional "plot" just described but also other organizations of events. "Narrative structure", then, in its most inclusive sense, is concerned with the arrangement of events in whatever way the author has ordered them. It is a broad term. However, in any study which proposes to examine ,e

The Bride of Lammermoor, p. 17; Ch. 1. The story is printed in the volume with Anne of Geierstein, pp. 415-422, in the Riverside Edition. The above quotation is found on p. 415. The request was made by F. M. Reynolds, editor of The Keepsake, in which the story appeared in 1828. «8 Great Writers (New York, 1907), p. 59. •"> See above, p. 13. 97

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21

closely and particularly the various events within a narrative, more specific terminology is required to describe these events, especially those which may distinguish one kind of narrative structure from another. Scott himself frequently uses two terms traditionally accepted in descriptions of structure. These are "crisis" and "catastrophe". By "crisis" Scott usually means a point in the life of a character at which he is faced with a choice or at which a choice influential on his future will be made for him by other persons or by circumstances. This sentence from Waverley gives an excellent illustration of the word as used by Scott: "Waverley was suffered to remain seated in the recess of a window, unnoticed by any one, in anxious reflection upon the crisis of his fate, which seemed now rapidly approaching."40 In The Antiquary the word again appears with the same meaning: "Lovel was as brave as most men; but none can internally regard such a crisis as now approached without deep feelings of awe and uncertainty." 41 And in Quentin Durward: The reflection that he [Quentin] had been planted like a marksman in a thicket who watches for a stag, to take the life of the noble; Count of Crevecoeur, had in it nothing ennobling. It was very true, that the King's measures seemed on this occasion merely cautionary and defensive; but how did the youth know but he might be soon commanded on some offensive operation of the same kind? This would be an unpleasant crisis, since it was plain, from the character of his master, that there would be destruction in refusing, while his honour told him there would be disgrace in complying.42

These are only three of many such uses of the word scattered throughout the Waverley novels. The meaning of the term, as Scott used it, may be stated as follows: a crisis is a major event involving choice, made either by the protagonist himself or for him by forces outside himself. By "catastrophe" Scott means the final outcome of the basic movement of the novel, the logical result of what has gone before. Here his meaning seems to be in accord with the traditional definition of the term, as two quotations from The Lives of the Novelists will illustrate. In a comment appreciative of Tom Jones, Scott says, The felicitous contrivance, and happy extrication of the story, where every incident tells upon and advances the catastrophe, while, at the same time, it illustrates the characters of those interested in its approach, cannot too often be mentioned with the highest approbation. The attention of the reader is never diverted or puzzled by unnecessary digressions, or recalled to the main story by abrupt and startling recurrences; he glides down the narrative like 40 41 42

II, 34; Ch. 39. I, 323; Ch. 20. I, 181-182; Ch. 11.

22

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a boat on the surface of some broad navigable stream, which only winds enough to gratify the voyager with the varied beauty of its banks. 4 3 A n d in his discussion of Mrs. Radcliffe's work he comments that "A plan of narrative, happily complicated and ingeniously resolved, continues to please after many readings; for, although the interest of eager curiosity is no more, it is supplied by the rational pleasure, which admires the author's art, and traces a thousand minute passages, which render the catastrophe probable, yet escape notice in the eagerness of a first perusal." 44 By "crisis" and "catastrophe", then, Scott means what has been traditionally meant in the history of criticism, and the fact that he has thus used these terms justifies their employment in a study of the structure of his novels. 4 5 It is appropriate at this point to turn to the work of one of the pioneers in modern criticism of dramatic structure, Gustav Freytag. In his Techniques of the Drama, Freytag gives the following clear and valuable summary: These parts of the drama, (a) introduction, (b) rise, (c) climax, (d) return or fall, (e) catastrophe, have each what is peculiar in purpose and construction. Between them stand three important and scenic effects, through which the parts are separated as well as bound together. Of these three dramatic moments, or crises, one, which indicates the beginning of the stirring action, stands between the introduction and the rise; the second, the beginning of the counter-action, between the climax and the return; the third, which must rise once more before the catastrophe, between the return and the catastrophe. 46 «

P. 63. P. 325. 45 For "crisis" the OED gives as its third meaning "A vitally important or decisive stage in the progress of anyhting; a turning point; also, a state of affairs in which a decisive change for better or worse is imminent"; the first citation is dated 1627. For its first meaning of "catastrophe" the OED offers Dr. Johnson's definition, "The change or revolution which produces the conclusion or final event of a dramatic piece"; the first citation is dated 1579. Scott's use of the two terms is generally equivalent to these historical meanings. 46 Trans. Elias J. MacEwan (Chicago, 1895), p. 115. MacEwan is responsible for the insertion of the phrase "or crises" in the third sentence; Freytag does not use "Krisis" or any equivalent thereof. The original reads as follows: "Von diesen drei dramatischen Momenten steht eines, welches den Beginn der bewegten Handlung bezeichnet, zwischen Einleitung und Steigerung" (Gesammelte Werke [Leipzig, 1897], XIV, 102). It should be borne in mind that the work of several later critics is similar to, and perhaps indebted to, that of Freytag. Harold Weston's concept of structure as represented by the "W" diagram, set forth in Form in Literature (London, 1934), has clear resemblances to Freytag's thought. And Kenneth Burke's "syllogistic progression", one of the major types of structure (presented in CounterStatement [Los Altos, 1953], p. 124), represents the same kind of plot, that in which the events are causally related and a turn or reversal occurs. 44

STRUCTURE DEFINED

23

It is in terms of Freytag's "three dramatic moments" that the structure of Scott's novels may most profitably be approached, and in the light of the remarks made above pointing out Scott's concern with pictorial effects at structurally important moments, it is particularly interesting to note that Freytag refers to the three dramatic moments as "three important and scenic effects". Scott himself has endorsed two of the three terms necessary in differentiating among the three dramatic moments: crisis and catastrophe. It remains only to name the first of the three. Since this dramatic moment is usually characterized by the first clear presentation of the conflict of the novel, and the position of the protagonist in relation to the theme and to other characters is defined at this point, the term "defining event" is usefully descriptive. There are, however, novels in which no distinct turning point is present, novels which are developed progressively; the three moments of intensity are present, but the second and third events build on the first, with a cumulative effect rather than a change of direction. In this situation, the terms "definition", "confirmation", and "culmination" will be appropriate. Wherever necessary, these six terms - defining event, crisis, catastrophe for a narrative having "crucial structure", and definition, confirmation, culmination for a narrative having "progressive structure" - will be used as here defined. They indicate causally interrelated dramatic moments in which the forces at work in the novel confront each other and either define, reaffirm, reverse, or complete the fortunes of the protagonist. The conflict focuses itself at these three moments and either states, reemphasizes, or changes the movement of the novel from that point on. A third type of structure, in addition to "crucial" and "progressive", may be called "climactic". Here, rather than three dramatic moments, there is a relatively uninterrupted movement in one direction, a cumulative growth of effect toward one moment of climax at the conclusion of the narrative. For the purposes of this study, the novels which are characterized by causally interrelated dramatic moments (three such moments in the crucial and progressive structures, and one in the climactic) will be designated "romances". Most of Scott's novels fall within this category. There is, however, a smaller group of novels whose structures are characterized by an episodic (rather than a causal) sequence of events; these novels will be called "chronicles". This analysis is based on the belief that a study of narrative structure

24

STRUCTURE DEFINED

is a fruitful method of approaching fiction. Such a study leads first to a clearer understanding of the works as artistic creations; but its further possibilities have been clearly stated by a contemporary Italian critic and philosopher, Umberto Eco: I hold that the formal analysis of a work's structural mechanics (and the working out of constant structural patterns to be found in any work of art) does not lead one to treat the work as an end in itself (as with many of the new critics) but serves to provide the instruments by which to understand the relations between work, cultural context and the personality of the writer.47 Perhaps if the value of a study of structure and of the many directions in which it can lead were more generally recognized, it would become clear not only that Scott's ability to construct a plot has been greatly underrated but that the novels contain a much richer depth of meaning than the traditional accusations of superficiality would suggest.

47

"The Analysis of Structure", TLS, Friday, September 27, 1963, p. 756.

II THE ROMANCES

Scott's definition of the novel as a genre is broad indeed, easily including the two different kinds of narrative structure here designated "romances" and "chronicles". He spoke of "the . . . Novel, which Johnson has described as 'a smooth tale, generally of love'; but which we would rather define as 'a fictitious narrative . . . [in which] the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events, and the modern state of society.' " 1 Within this loosely bounded area, Scott recognized the two basic types of narrative structure here designated as romances and chronicles. The romances, characterized by causally interrelated events, correspond to the type of novel represented by Tom Jones, upon which Scott commented frequently and appreciatively (see The Fortunes of Nigel, Introduction, p. xxv, and The Monastery, Introduction, pp. xxvii-xxviii, quoted above on pp. 16-17). Scott also called attention to the chronicle, characterized by an episodic plot: Smollett, Le Sage, and others, emancipating themselves from the strictness of the rules [Fielding] has laid down, have written rather a history of the miscellaneous adventures which befall an individual in the course of life than the plot of a regular and connected epopoeia, where every step brings us a point nearer to the final catastrophe. These great masters have been 1

Miscellaneous Prose Works, VI (Edinburgh, 1834-1836), 129. Apparently quoting from memory, Scott erred; in his Dictionary of the English Language, Johnson's phrase is "a small tale. . . ." It would seem that Scott also uses the term "romance" as inconsistently equivalent to "novel". In the same passage in which he defines the novel, he describes a romance as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse, the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents"; yet in the Introduction to The Monastery, pp. xxvii-xxviii (quoted above on pp. 16-17), he distinguishes between the structure of Tom Jones and that of Gil Bias and Roderick Random while referring to all three as "romances". This inconsistency is one indication of the long-recognized fact that Scott's critical comments, while pertinent and often incisive when considered individually, do not comprise a total system of rigorous criticism. The term "romance" will be used in this paper as defined above.

26

THE ROMANCES

satisfied if they amused the reader upon the road; though the conclusion only arrived because the tale must have an end, just as the traveller alights at the inn because it is evening.2 Scott himself used both kinds of structure. In "Sir Walter Scott's Theory of the Novel", George Edward Smock has pointed out that "Scott wavered between two principles of structure - the loose and the complicated plot",3 and that "the looser type of structure was more congenial to his temperament. But he felt that some show of complicated plot was necessary." 4 In The Structure of the Novel, Edwin Muir says, "Scott's novels are the result of an unsatisfactory compromise. He is a fine novelist of action, and a great portrayer of character; and his right hand is always at war with his left." 5 Smock's "loose" and "complicated" plots are roughly equivalent to Muir's "novel of character" and "novel of action".6 Thus the fact that two kinds of narrative structure exist in Scott's novels has been recognized by scholars; but no agreement has been reached as to the nature of the two types (here designated "romance" and "chronicle"), and no attempt has been made to analyze their structure in the manner of the present paper. In general, the romances are characterized by a relatively clear structure in which the three dramatic moments described by Freytag (see above, p. 22) are causally interrelated. Within this group of eighteen novels, however, two smaller groups must be noted; the events of four of the novels are organized progressively by definition, confirmation, and culmination, and the events of another four are arranged according to climactic structure. The remaining ten novels, over half of the romances, are organized in terms of defining event, crisis, and catastrophe; that is, they have a crucial structure.7 The entire group of romances, however, may be subdivided more pertinently into "comic romances" and "tragic romances", according to (1) the nature of the relationship between the protagonist and the action, and (2) the nature of the ending. In the larger of these sub-divisions, the comic romances, the protagonist is active - that is, he controls and shapes events to a greater extent than he is controlled by them - and the 2

The Fortunes of Nigel, Introduction, p. xxvi. (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1934), p. 54. 4 Ibid., p. 56. 5 (New York, 1929), p. 36. • For Muir's definitions of the terms "novel of character" and "novel of action", see pp. 20-27. 7 The reader may wish to consult Appendix B, which shows in outline form the classification of the novels. 3

THE ROMANCES

27

8

final outcome of these events is happy. In the tragic romances, the protagonist is relatively passive and the outcome is unhappy.

COMIC ROMANCES

Thirteen of the eighteen romances are comic. They are Waverley, The Antiquary, The Black Dwarf, The Heart of Midlothian, Rob Roy, A Legend of Montrose, Ivanhoe, The Pirate, Quentin Durward, The Talisman, Woodstock, Anne of Geierstein, and Castle Dangerous. Three of these, The Heart of Midlothian, Rob Roy, and Quentin Durward, are organized progressively; and three, The Black Dwarf, A Legend of Montrose, and Castle Dangerous, have what may be described as climactic structure. These novels will be discussed later. Of the remaining seven novels in the comic romance category, Waverley may be taken as fairly typical of the narrative structure in which a turn occurs in the causally related sequence of events, the protagonist is (or in this case, becomes) active, and the ending is happy. To describe Waverley is indeed to describe many of Scott's twentysix novels. For example, there is a serious conflict involving more than the confrontation of two characters, an important structural element which is found in twenty-one of the novels.9 There is a journey, found in fourteen. There is the contrast of cultures, which figures importantly in twenty. There are two heroines, found in four. There is an uncle-nephew relationship, present in ten. The narrative proper does not begin until the second chapter, a characteristic of fourteen. Waverley is a story of initiation, as are five others. And finally, historical characters loom large, as they do in eighteen of the twenty-six works.10 The structural significance of the journey, the contrast of two cultures, the theme of initiation, and the presence of historical characters will be discussed in Chapter IV. Waverley is similar to six other full-length works in the comic romance group (The Antiquary, The Pirate, The Talisman, Woodstock, and Anne of Geierstein) not only in the presence of some of these com8

The term "comic" is used in its older, literary sense, descriptive of a narrative "typically having a happy ending". See Webster's New International Dictionary (both second and third editions) and the OED. 9 The term "serious conflict" includes not only battles and tournaments but nonmilitary events as well, like the financial struggle in The Antiquary, Ch. 41. 10 See Appendix C for a list of these and other importantly recurring elements in Scott's fiction.

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THE ROMANCES

mon elements, but in structure. 11 The three dramatic moments are present, a turn occurs, and characteristically, the defining event comes rather late in relation to the total number of chapters in the novel. In Waverley, the defining event occurs in Chapter 25 (see below); there are seventy-two chapters in the novel. It is interesting to note that there are more chapter divisions in this, the first of Scott's novels, than in any of the later ones, the average number of chapters for all novels being thirty-eight. Regardless of the number of chapters in any given work, however, it is true that the defining event is usually somewhat delayed. Related to this characteristic is the fact, mentioned above, that in fourteen of the twenty-six novels the narrative proper does not begin until Chapter 2, at the earliest, and in two other works - Peveril of the Peak and Guy Mannering - there are false starts, structurally speaking, of about ten chapters. Perhaps the often-noted "huddled effect" of the endings is the converse of the "stretched effect" of the beginnings. Simon O. Lesser, discussing fiction in general, seems to be speaking directly of the Waverley novels when he says, Time, of course, moves at different speeds in different works, and the tempo of a single work of any length is seldom uniform. Time may move sluggishly until the stage is set, gain momentum when the action starts, and finally rush irresistibly toward some destination, as though it had at last glimpsed a goal it had long sought. 12

This statement describes well the movement of a typical Scott narrative, as does Edward Wagenknecht's observation that "we go slowly while we are winning our way into a story; once we hold the material firmly in our grasp, astonishing speed and vividness can be achieved". 13 Ian Jack accounts for the slow beginning of Waverley in this manner: Scott had found in Scotland's past people and events as romantic as anything he had discovered in imaginative literature. His aim in the Scotch n o v e l s . . . was to communicate his imaginative excitement to his readers. This intention explains the structure of Waverley. As Jeffrey pointed out, all that really happens in the first half of the book is that the hero travels into Scotland and learns about "the manners and state of society that prevailed". 14

Whatever the reason for its existence, the long and slowly-moving 11 Waverley is apparently the only Scott novel whose structure has been analyzed in a manner at all similar to that undertaken as the basis for study in the present paper. This discussion is S. Stewart Gordon's "Waverley and the 'Unified Design' ELH, XVIII (June, 1951), 107-122, mentioned above, p. 14. 11 Fiction and the Unconscious (Boston, 1957), pp. 166-167. 13 Cavalcade of the English Novel (New York, 1943), p. 167. 14 Sir Walter Scott, p. 15.

THE ROMANCES

29

opening, like that found in Waverley, is one of the most obvious structural characteristics of Scott's novels. The major movement of Waverley begins in Chapter 16 when Edward goes into the Highlands with Evan Dhu, the envoy of Fergus Mac-Ivor. At this point, and for many chapters to come, Edward is unaware of the full import of his situation as a young Englishman in a relatively foreign culture to which he is emotionally attracted. This attraction is based on the romantic nature of the tales of adventure with which he has educated himself15 and is later strengthened by the romance of the Jacobite cause, when the Mac-Ivors' commitment to that cause is revealed to him. As stated above, the defining event occurs in Chapter 25. Edward receives letters from London reporting that his father has been dismissed from his position in government service and urging Edward to resign his commission in the English regiment in which he is a captain; simultaneously, other delayed letters from his commanding officer contain orders to report at a time which has already passed. Edward sees both incidents as parts of a plot somehow aimed against the Waverley family, and when Fergus reveals his Jacobite views and also urges Edward's resignation of his commission, Edward agrees to leave the service of England and tentatively casts his lot with the Jacobite cause. Thus the situation is defined: an Englishman has to an extent renounced his own country while temporarily in another country to which he is emotionally attracted. The nature of Edward's commitment becomes much less tentative when in Chapter 40 the basic decision made in Chapter 25 is reaffirmed; when the prince, Charles Edward, offers him a choice of leaving with safe-conduct or of staying, Edward chooses to stay as a volunteer under Fergus. The crisis, the turning point, occurs during the Battle of Preston in Chapter 47 when Edward saves the life of the English officer Talbot. Although the Scots win the battle, Edward's Englishness has begun to reassert itself, partially as a result of the disillusionment he has begun to feel with the Highland forces. This process of disillusion continues, while simultaneously Talbot rises in Edward's opinion. In Chapter 60 Edward is taken in at a farmhouse after being separated from his men in a skirmish. Here he is snowbound for ten days and cannot rejoin the Scots, who are far to the north and reportedly being defeated. Scott 15

See Waverley, Ch. 3, and the General Preface to the Waverley Novels (printed in Waverley, pp. xv-xxxvi) for a description of the early education of Edward Waverley and of Scott himself.

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THE ROMANCES

says at this point, the closing words in Chapter 60, that Edward "felt himself entitled to say firmly . . . that the romance of his life was ended, and that its real history had now commenced".1® This movement from "romance" to "history" is related to the theme of initiation and to Scott's eighteenth-century outlook, two of the aspects of the Waverley novels to be discussed in Chapter IV. The catastrophe, the outcome of the turn made at the crisis, occurs in Chapter 61. Edward reads in a newspaper that his father is dead and that his uncle will stand trial for Edward's defection unless he surrenders himself; he therefore immediately sets out to the south. His Englishness has fully reasserted itself in the final important event in a novel whose fundamental theme is the movement of the protagonist from Scottish romanticism to English realism. Even before the Battle of Preston, Edward had begun to see that war was not as romantic as he had imagined it; men were killed, including men like Houghton, one of his former followers from Waverley-Honour, who died begging Edward not to fight against England. A later development of Edward's changed attitudes is the awakening of his sense of duty to his family, manifested in his determination to prevent his uncle from having to stand trial whatever the cost to himself.17 The last event of major interest - and it is a moving one - is the death of Fergus and Evan, in Chapter 69.18 The reader is not particularly concerned, nor was Scott, with the love story of Edward and Rose, having known from the beginning that Edward would choose Rose rather than Flora, even if the latter would have accepted him, and that they would live happily ever after.18 13

II, 202. The theme of an awakening awareness of duty and a developing sense of responsibility was repeated by Scott in Rob Roy, where it becomes a much more important eiement of the novel than it is in Waverley. See below, pp. 36-38. 18 In The Haunted Castle: A Study of the Elements of English Romanticism (London, 1927), pp. 287-288, Eino Railo calls attention to Edward and Fergus as examples of the blond and dark types; Edward is the "bright hero-type" and Fergus is the "dark, tragic type". See also below, p. 50, note 54, and p. 67, note 14. 18 See Flora's description of Edward's future life, in her conversation with Rose at the close of Ch. 52 (II, 139-140). In his comments on this passage in The Epic Strain in the English Novel (London, 1958), pp. 68-69, Ε. M. W. Tillyard calls attention to Scott's "very lovely" use of "eighteenth-century irony and sophistication" and points out that "Flora speaks with the accents of one of Congreve's heroines". In Flora's speech Scott has indeed depicted the eighteenth-century man of sensibility, a type which Donald Davie states Scott himself represents (in The Heyday of Sir Walter Scott [New York, 1961], p. 38): "Among the men of feeling we have to list the author of Waverley himself." The structure of the novels clearly indicates, however, that Scott's philosophy, insofar as it emerges from the novels, was much more nearly that of the rational man than the man of sensibility. See below, Chapter IV, esp. pp. 78-81. 11

THE ROMANCES

31

There is, however, more to the problem of the love story than such a superficial comment indicates. It has been pointed out quite justly that in the Waverley novels in general if the love plot seems dull it is because the historical plot is more central to Scott's purpose.20 And about Quentin Ourward, Scott himself said, "The selection of this remarkable person [Louis XI] as the principal character in the romance - for it will be easily comprehended that the little love intrigue of Quentin is only employed as the means of bringing out the story - afforded considerable facilities to the Author." 21 The "little love intrigue" of Edward has precisely the same purpose; Scott's central interest lay with the historical contrast of cultures in which the two societies confront each other under the observation of the relatively neutral protagonist. In the major historical incident in Waverley, for example, the protagonist does not figure largely; for the moment, the swirling forces of the Scots and the English are the novelist's primary concern, and Edward's saving Talbot, while structurally crucial in the outcome of the fictional protagonist's story, is in historical perspective only a minor action performed by an unimportant character. (The functions of the protagonist and his relationship to history and to historical characters are discussed in Chapter IV.) The love story of Edward and Rose also serves another purpose; Davie has said, In Scotland when Scott wrote, no question was so vital as that of the possibility of "marrying" two cultural traditions - the one barbarous and heroic, the other Hanoverian. When Waverley chooses to marry Rose Bradwardine he acts out Scott's answer to this question."

Davie is quite right; indeed, the same point is made, much more strongly, by the structure of the novel. The defining event, crisis, and catastrophe, as here explained, demonstrate in terms a great deal more forceful than those of the "little love intrigue" the inevitable rejection of the older heroic culture and the corollary movement from Scottish romanticism to English realism. The theme has been stated by the structure 10

This idea is a critical commonplace. See, for example, Walter Bagehot, Estimates in Criticism, II (London, 1909), 117; Ernest A. Baker, The History of the English Novel, VI (New York, 1950), 138; Saintsbury, "The Historical Novel", p. 31; and Una Pope-Hennessy, Sir Walter Scott (Denver, 1949), p. 11. 21 Quentin Durward, Introduction, p. xix. It should be borne in mind, however, that in spite of Scott's comment Louis XI is structurally not "the principal character". See the discussion of Quentin Durward, pp. 73-75, below. 12 The Heyday of Sir Walter Scott, p. 64.

32

THE ROMANCES

of the novel and is reinforced by the symbolic meaning of the wedding of Rose and Edward. The structure of Waverley, then, may be taken as fairly typical of the full-length comic romances having a crucial structure: the three dramatic moments are causally related, there is a turn, the protagonist is active, and the ending is happy.23 And yet to say that Scott simply re-worked the same pattern, even within a category as small as that of the comic romances, is a great oversimplification. For example, both The Antiquary and The Pirate show similarities to the novels whose structure is climactic, for in each of these narratives the crisis occurs quite late (in The Antiquary it is found in Chapters 41-43, and the catastrophe is in Chapter 45; in The Pirate it is found in Chapter 40, and the catastrophe is in Chapters 41-42). Each of these novels has, however, three clearly distinguishable dramatic moments, whereas climactic structure is characterized by a cumulative growth of effect toward one dramatic moment at the conclusion of the narrative. The structure of Ivanhoe, to take another example, is also somewhat atypical of the arrangement of events in the comic romances. Here the three dramatic moments are three conflicts: a tournament, a battle, and a personal confrontation comprise the defining event, crisis, and catastrophe. But in spite of these differences, the comic romances (Waverley, The Antiquary, Ivanhoe, The Pirate, The Talisman, Woodstock, and Anne of Geierstein) have more similarities than dissimilarities. They are basically alike in structure and in the relationship of the protagonist to the events. The fact that the protagonist is active, in terms of what society demands of him, and receives happiness as the reward for his action is indicative of the outlook underlying the Waverley novels. That way of thought is rational, approbative of the status quo, and oriented toward the existing structure of society; it is, by and large, one of the eighteenth-century views of life. In four of Scott's most universally admired novels - The Heart of Midlothian, Rob Roy, Quentin Durward, and Old Mortality - the events are arranged progressively. That is to say, the three dramatic moments are present, but the second and third events build on the first with a cumulative effect rather than a change of direction (definition, confirmation, and culmination rather than the crucial structure of defining event, crisis, and catastrophe). These four novels are romances; The Heart of " See Appendix D for a summary of the structure of the remaining six comic romances.

THE ROMANCES

33

Midlothian, Rob Roy, and Quentin Durward are comic, and Old Mortality structurally is tragic in spite of the addition of material apparently meant to create a happy ending for a narrative whose events logically lead only to unhappiness. Since these novels are among Scott's most important works, a brief study of the structure of each will be given: The Heart of Midlothian and Rob Roy will be analyzed here, Quentin Durward will be discussed in Chapter IV, and Old Mortality will be presented below in the section dealing with the tragic romances. Of the opening of The Heart of Midlothian, Thomas Seccombe has said, Generally [Scott] begins at the beginning, but not so here. The story at once plunges the reader into a state of things which he cannot comprehend without knowledge of three previous circumstances - the relations of Robertson with Madge Wildfire, with Effie Deans, and with the Fife smugglers. To pause in the course of the story, to give bald, straightforward narratives of these past events, is the novelist's plain and obvious method, but it is also the least artistic. On the whole Scott steers well. The past is gathered from its effect on the present, from the dramatic confessions of the sin-stricken actors, from the wild and whirling words of the crazed girl.24

Following the revelation of some of this necessary information, the definition of the protagonist's situation occurs in Chapter 15 when Jeanie, having learned of Effie's imprisonment, meets a man, later identified as Robertson, who pleads with her to lie in order to save Effie; her refusal to do so constitutes the material out of which the subsequent events grow. Throughout the novel Jeanie, the active protagonist, relies on the truth and on her own straightforward plans to salvage whatever may be saved from the heartbreaking situation. The confirmation of Jeanie's decision takes place in the trial of Effie, Chapter 23, when Jeanie will not lie even in response to her sister's cry of "Save me, Jeanie!" Shortly thereafter Jeanie determines to go to London to plead Effie's case before the Queen. This interview (Chapter 37), arranged by the Duke of Argyle after Jeanie's long journey, forms the culmination of the events of the novel. Refusing to use Robertson's offer of his life (as chief of the Porteous mob) in exchange for Effie's, Jeanie relies still on truth and on the human integrity of herself and of the Queen, and her plea gains the Queen's sympathy and ultimately the reprieve for Effie. These causally related events, engaged in by an active protagonist, 84

"The Heart of Midlothian", in Scott Centenary Articles (London, 1932), p. 58. Originally published in TLS, June 6, 1918.

34

THE ROMANCES

and leading to a happy ending, justify consideration of The Heart of Midlothian as a comic romance. Robertson (Lord George Staunton) and Effie elope and plan to go abroad, Butler is ordained, he and Jeanie marry, and structurally the novel comes to an end in Chapter 47. The remaining five chapters have been described as a melodramatic addition constituting a structural flaw in an otherwise well-executed novel. That this should be so in a novel which has been a universal favorite requires some comment. Daiches attempts to reconcile the discrepancy between the last part (originally published as Volume IV) and the structurally unified body of the novel proper (Volumes I-III) by saying that The Heart of Midlothian ends on a note of agricultural improvement and pastoral peace, against which all spirited physical action is made to sound melodramatic and silly, but the mechanical adjustment of this conclusion, as well as the tone in which it is narrated, indicates that peace has been won at the price of some valuable quality in human life. 25

To the average reader and the literary critic alike, however, the "mechanical" quality of the conclusion is more apparent than any thematic statement made by it. It is difficult to account for the presence of a series of incidents which involves Staunton's search for his long-lost illegitimate son and which reaches its climax in the son's killing his father. Baker dismisses the problem with this statement: "The last chapters need not be read; and without them, the book ranks with its immediate predecessor [Rob Roy] as one of the most truly dramatic, and richest in character, pathos, and humour, of all of Scott's novels."2® But being instructed, for the sake of aesthetic satisfaction, not to read a certain portion of a novel is comparable to being told not to look at a particular section of a painting; it is there, it exists, and it must be dealt with. Hillhouse states that in August 1818 an anonymous reviewer in Blackwood's suggested that "the last volume . . . was probably written at the behest of the publisher to fill up space and justify an exorbitant price". 27 This may have been the case; the suggestion is not contradicted by Scott's cavalier comment several years later: A third rogue writes to tell m e - r a t h e r of the latest, if the matter was of consequence - that he approves of the first three volumes of the Heart of 25

"Introduction to The Heart of Midlothian", in The Heart of Midlothian (New York, 1948), pp. viii-ix. " The History of the English Novel, VI, 162. 27 The Waverley Novels and Their Critics, p. 57.

THE ROMANCES

35

Midlothian, but totally condemns the fourth. Doubtless he thinks his opinion worth the sevenpence sterling which his letter costs. However, an author should be reasonably well pleased when three-fourths of his works are acceptable to the reader.28 Even if Scott did write the last volume of The Heart of Midlothian "to fill up space", perhaps it still may be said to his credit that the content of this section has more emotional relevance to the main body of the novel than has been previously recognized: the melodrama of the last part may be related to the fact that this narrative is closer to the novel of sensibility than any other which Scott produced. Although Jeanie Deans differs greatly from the usual heroine of a novel of sensibility, the motivation of her actions springs from the same source as the motivations of characters found within that genre; that is to say, her actions are the objectification of the goodness found within her as an individual, found within the human heart. Her inner goodness determines her decision to try to save her sister and it determines the method she will use: reliance on truth and human sympathy. "If a sister asks a sister's life on her bended knee, they will pardon her they shall pardon her - and they will win a thousand hearts by it." 29 Her inner goodness creates her actions; her actions create the structure of the novel; and the structure in turn creates the emotional effect produced by the work as a whole. That the novel of sensibility used emotion as both cause and effect is clear,30 and that the melodramatic qualities in sentimental drama have close relationships with the emotionalism of the novel of sensibility is likewise plain.31 Thus the melodramatic qualities of the last part of The Heart of Midlothian may perhaps be explained in terms of the underlying emotional emphases which have preceded it; there is kinship of emotion between the two parts.32 Regardless of whether the story of Staunton is melodramatic, Scott has used this character to demonstrate in forceful terms one of the themes recurrent in the Waverley novels: the disaster that results from failure to respect and abide by the social status quo. Staunton, an aristo28

The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, ed. J. G. Tait and W. M. Parker (Edinburgh, 1950), p. 38. The entry is dated December 10, 1825. *> I, 365; Ch. 25. 30 See Louis I. Bredvold, The Natural History of Sensibility (Detroit, 1962), passim, and Baker, V, 120-153. 51 See Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Early Nineteenth Century Drama: 18001850,I (London, 1930), 100-120. 32 The phrase "heart of Midlothian" of course refers to the tolbooth, but the word "heart" intrinsically carries additional meanings, suggestive of emotion and sensibility.

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THE ROMANCES

erat, in his seduction of Effie, a member of the lower class, has violated the principles of responsible and rational conduct; he has crossed caste lines for the gratification of the senses. For this double offense against rational society, he must be punished, an inevitable effect which cannot be stayed even by his later marriage to the wronged girl.33 It is possible, since the implied basis for action in The Heart of Midlothian differs so greatly from the basis suggested in the other Waverley novels (a point which will become more evident in the course of this study), that Scott felt some compulsion, however slight, to insert a series of events which would make clear the belief that the existing social structure could not be threatened with impunity. Ian Jack has offered high praise of this novel and of the unity achieved by the emphasis on Jeanie Deans: The unity of the main part of the book - and in this it has no important rival in Scott's work - springs directly from the all-importance of Jeanie Deans: this is the only one of his stories which is primarily concerned with one particular human being. The theme of Scotts character, or at a deeper level of the passions of mankind, is here brought to the foreground: in this serious book there is no element of the Guide to Scotland. The effect is the more powerful because the central theme-that of a Quest for Mercy-is so simple and archetypal... . . . . the book has the deep unity of theme which is the condition of its profounder effect. The last volume always excepted, it is the only one of the Waverley series that passes Aristotle's test of unity: nothing can be added or taken away without impairing it as a whole.34 Jack's comments aptly summarize the attitudes of most critics toward The Heart of Midlothian. As is the case in The Heart oj Midlothian, the structure of Rob Roy is arranged progressively and the protagonist is active. In the latter novel, however, the definition is delayed until Chapter 17; the first six33

In an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, "The Personal and Literary Relationships of Sir Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper" (The University of North Carolina, 1950), George William Walker in his discussion of Staunton and similar characters makes the following statement: "The most remarkable characteristic of the well-born villain is that he has designs on women or mistreats them" (p. 235). To call Staunton a villain is probably too strong a statement of his character; but it is significant that in meeting death he shares a fate common to a number of more or less "well-born villains" in Scott's novels: Rashleigh Osbaldistone (Rob Roy), Valentine Bulmer (St. Ronan's Welt), Julian Avenel (The Monastery), Clement Cleveland (The Pirate), Bois-Guilbert (Ivanhoe), Richard Varney (Kenilworth), and Basil Olifant (Old Mortality). By having unlawful "designs on women", these characters have defied society and must be punished. 34 "The Waverley Romances", pp. 195 and 204.

THE ROMANCES

37

teen chapters present the protagonist as he leaves his native English culture and acquaints himself with a non-urban milieu. Walter Allen has made the following observation, the further significance of which will be discussed later: It is this feeling for the historic past behind the individual that is the clue to Scott's genius. History is the fourth dimension through which his characters move. And he sees them naturally in indissoluble connection with the great historic events of their times, with those movements of feeling and ideas from the conflict of which the future will be born. The clearest instance of this is probably the beginning of Rob Roy, when Frank Osbaldistone goes to visit his uncle in Northumberland.35 In this respect, the beginning of Rob Roy bears a strong resemblance to the first twenty-four chapters of Waverley. The definition of Frank's situation occurs in Chapter 17. He has left London because he does not wish to follow the mercantile profession of his father; his cousin Rashleigh has been "exchanged" for Frank as an apprentice in his father's counting-house. In the definition, Diana Vernon gives Frank a letter which had been intercepted and which reports that, during Mr. Osbaldistone's absence, Rashleigh has disappeared into Scotland with bills and remittances upon which the Osbaldistone business depends. Here Frank's sense of filial duty is awakened, apparently for the first time (again a similarity to a sub-theme in Waverley), as he realizes that bankruptcy would destroy his father. He therefore arranges to go to Glasgow, meet the faithful Owen, and search for Rashleigh. Diana then gives him a packet which, as it develops in Chapter 23, contains a letter for Rob, who has already been introduced into the story. The confirmation occurs in Chapter 26 when Frank learns the background of Rob and begins to see the connections between business and politics. King George has cut off money from the Highlanders (who cannot get work and in truth do not want work), and the Osbaldistone firm is involved in extensive financial dealings with Scottish companies and individuals; therefore, failure of his father's firm would help set in motion a Jacobite uprising.36 Having been made aware of these facts, 35

Six Great Novelists (London, 1955), p. 92. In speaking of the "Common Form" underlying many of the Waverley novels, Ian Jack says of the typical hero: "In spite of his youth and inexperience he rapidly becomes a person of great importance: in Rob Roy, for example, which exhibits most of the characteristics of this Common Form, it is suggested to the astonished hero that unless he pays his father's debts the failure of his business will precipitate the 1715 rebellion" ("The Waverley Romances", p. 189). The slight tone of scorn in the comment notwithstanding, this information is precisely that which is given to Frank; it forms a part of his initiation into life (see below, pp. 78-81).

36

38

THE ROMANCES

Frank agrees to accept Rob's invitation to join him in the Highlands, since there he can possibly acquire further knowledge of Rashleigh and the company's papers. The culmination takes place in Chapter 33. Here Frank assists in Rob's escape from the English soldiers. Shortly after, he is met in the forest by Diana and a stranger (later identified as her father); she gives him a packet containing the missing papers and bids him goodbye forever. The result of these three dramatic moments is that upon his return from Holland, Mr. Osbaldistone is able to restore the company's credit; this event occurs in Chapter 36, which forms the structurally logical conclusion of the narrative. But there remain in the novel three chapters which contain so much action that even a bare summary of the events would be inappropriately long. Involved are the rebellion of 1715, the deaths of Frank's uncle and all his cousins except Rashleigh, the attack by Rashleigh and his men on Osbaldistone Hall, the death of Rashleigh at the hands of Rob, and the later marriage of Frank and Diana. As in The Heart of Midlothian, Scott has added material after the logical conclusion of a novel whose structure is progressive. That the same situation should also exist in Old Mortality, which likewise is organized progressively, leads one to suggest that it was more difficult for Scott to "wind up" a sequence of events thus arranged than to conclude a novel whose structure was crucial. Perhaps the absence of a clear-cut turning point, a crisis, in the progressively organized narrative made it psychologically more difficult for Scott to bring a novel having this kind of structure to a satisfactory conclusion. Alan McKillop has observed that Sometimes, particularly in the earlier novels from Waverley to Rob Roy, Scott tried to unify his plot by giving over control of its secret to a picturesque outlaw or outcast, to Donald Bean Lean, Meg Merrilies, Edie Ochiltree, or Rob R o y . . . . He overcompensated for a loose and desultory pattern by trying to put a mechanical mystery at the center.37 Perhaps, as demonstrated above, the novel has more structural unity than McKillop's comment would indicate; however, it is quite true that much of the reader's interest in the narrative centers on the exciting exploits of the "picturesque outlaw". As is the case in many of Scott's novels, the historical character is more attractive than the mediocre >7 "Sir Walter Scott in the Twentieth Century", in The Rice Institute Pamphlets, XX (April, 1933), 204.

THE ROMANCES

39

hero; the reader is more interested in the minor historical character and the historical incident than in the fictional protagonist and the larger structure of fictional events. Rob Roy does have a narrative structure, which "belongs" to the fictional protagonist; but the fact remains that this novel is an outstanding example of Scott's use of plot to "bring in fine things". Primary among these are the character and deeds of Rob Roy himself. Three of the comic romances have as their organizing principle what may be defined as climactic structure. That is, they do not have three dramatic moments characteristic of the structure of the majority of the Waverley novels; rather, there is a relatively uninterrupted movement in one direction, a cumulative growth of effect toward one moment of climax at the conclusion of the narrative. Novels having climactic structure are also shorter than the typical Scott novel.38 The three comic romances whose structure is climactic are The Black Dwarf, A Legend of Montrose, and Castle Dangerous. (Climactic structure is also found in one of the tragic romances, The Bride of Lammermoor, which will be discussed below.) The structure of Castle Dangerous may be used to illustrate climactic structure in the comic romances, although in this narrative antecedent events are of unusual importance. In Chapter 11 it is revealed that rather than marry the man for whom the King intended her, Lady Augusta of Berkely, orphaned and alone, has pledged herself and her lands to the knight who can hold Douglas Castle for a year and a day, and Sir John de Walton has taken up her offer. As the narrative opens in Chapter 1, Lady Augusta is disguised as Augustine, the son of Bertram, the old family minstrel, and they are travelling toward Douglas Castle to reaffirm the contract between the young lovers and if possible to cut short the time during which Augusta will be alone and unprotected. Overcome by fatigue, the travellers take refuge in a convent within a few miles of Douglas Castle. A series of complications involving characters both at the convent and at the castle ensues, and the conflict is not resolved until the final events (Chapter 20) when the inevitable battle between the Scottish Sir James Douglas, the rightful holder of the castle, and the English de Walton takes place. Because an ally on whom de Walton had relied has been defeated in 38

The average number of chapters in the novels having climactic structure is twenty-four; the average number of chapters for the Waverley group as a whole is thirty-eight.

40

THE ROMANCES

another battle, de Walton is forced to surrender the castle to Douglas; Sir James, however, is a magnanimous victor and he releases de Walton to Augusta. Their marriage follows shortly. The movement of the novel (aside from sub-plots of very minor importance) is thus a continuous accumulation and progression of events toward a climactic moment at the conclusion of the tale. The organization of events in The Black Dwarf and A Legend of Montrose is similar to that in Castle Dangerous.3e The comic romances, whether their structure is crucial, progressive, or climactic, are characterized by an active protagonist who helps shape the outcome of the narrative. By making choices and performing decisive actions in response to the dramatic moments of the narrative structure of the novel, he affects the direction of the story. Because he has responded properly to the demands made on him, at the conclusion of the novel he is rewarded with happiness, usually in the form of material wealth and the hand of the heroine. This behavior and its consequences reflect the eighteenth-century optimism underlying the Waverley novels.

TRAGIC ROMANCES

With the exception of The Bride of Lammermoor, the tragic romances are characterized by Freytag's three dramatic moments which are causally related, by a passive hero, and by an unhappy ending. The Bride of Lammermoor partakes of the latter two characteristics, but its narrative structure is climactic. There are four other tragic romances: Old Mortality, The Abbot, Kenilworth, and St. Ronan's Well. Among the members of this category there is less uniformity than may be found within either the comic romances or the chronicles; for this reason, the five tragic romances will be discussed individually. In The Abbot, the emotional center of the novel is the historical character, although the plot belongs structurally to the fictional protagonist; Kenilworth is an anomaly within the Waverley group in that the major characters are historical; and St. Ronan's Well is Scott's only attempt at a novel of manners. However, these narratives are united to each other and to The Bride of Lammermoor and Old Mortality by the pervasively tragic tone found even in those works {The Abbot and Old Mortality) in which the protagonist ultimately achieves happiness. se

See Appendix Ε for summaries of the structure of The Black Dwarf Legend of Montrose.

and A

41

THE ROMANCES

A study of the structure of The Abbot has a particular validity, for Scott was unusually concerned that this work should be successful. His immediately previous novel, The Monastery, had been, by common consent and by his own admission, a failure;40 he therefore exerted his best efforts on The Abbot, saying, I was aware that failure would be a conclusive disaster, so that my task was something like that of an enchanter who raises a spirit over whom he is uncertain of possessing an effectual control; and I naturally paid attention to such principles of composition as I conceived were best suited to the historical novel.41 It is interesting to note that when Scott attended to "composition" he used the structure here called crucial (the structure of drama, as described by Freytag; apparently this was the structure Scott thought "best suited to the historical novel") and he made the historical character the emotional center of the narrative. In the case of The Abbot, his care bore fruit in the form of one of the better Waver ley novels. Its predecessor, The Monastery, is by comparison quite formless and incoherent; the reader is hard pressed even to discover what the central thread of the narrative purports to be. (The Monastery is discussed below, pp. 61-62). In The Abbot the defining event occurs late. The novel opens with a three-chapter bridge from the final events of The Monastery, so that the major movement of the narrative does not get under way until Chapter 4. In Chapters 8 and 10 the idea that Catherine Seyton and the protagonist Roland Graeme are destined for some secret purpose, larger than themselves and unknown to them, is made clear; but the defining event does not occur until Chapter 21, the first chapter of Volume II, when Roland is given into the service of Mary Queen of Scots. From this point on, the narrative is concerned (emotionally, although not structurally) with Mary, the historical character; she and her plight become the focus of the novel, the emotional center toward which the first twenty chapters have been moving, while the fictional hero takes a secondary position. In her imprisonment in Lochleven Castle, Mary, like Roland, the passive protagonist, is acted upon rather than acting.42 For example, in 40

See the Introductions to The Monastery The Abbot, Introduction, p. xvii. 42 Roland is not only passive but appears cover the fact that Catherine is not really brother, also in the service of Mary, who Shakespeare, however, this impenetrability

and The

Abbot.

41

somewhat stupid in his failure to disin two places at once but has a twin disguises himself as Catherine. As in of disguises must simply be accepted.

42

THE ROMANCES

Chapter 22, when she is forced to sign away her right to the throne, Mary says, "My lords... the evils we cannot resist we must submit to: I will subscribe these parchments with such liberty of choice as my condition permits me. Were I on yonder shore, with a fleet jennet and ten good and loyal knights around me, I would subscribe my sentence of eternal condemnation as soon as the resignation of my throne. But here, in the Castle of Lochleven, with deep water around me, and you, my lords, beside me, I have no freedom of choice. Give me the pen, Melville, and bear witness to what I do, and why I do it."« Neither she nor the protagonist can control the outcome of the narrative. The crisis takes place in Chapter 35 when George Douglas and Henry Seyton arrange and execute Mary's escape across the lake. Roland is not a necessary actor in the flight; Lochleven is the patrimonial castle of George Douglas, who surely would have been capable of devising means to effect Mary's release without the help of her page, and conversely, Roland's greatest efforts toward an escape would have been entirely ineffectual without Douglas. It is true, however, that in the escape Roland leaves his primarily passive role and becomes active: he forges a set of false keys which are exchanged for the proper keys used in the flight. The escape, directed largely by Douglas and Seyton, is carried out and its results lead quickly to the final events of the plot. The catastrophe, the point to which all of Mary's plans have been tending, occurs in Chapter 37 in the battle before Crookstone Castle. Roland attempts to act in this engagement, and indeed he rescues Henry Seyton from a group of foes, but his best efforts are unavailing: Seyton dies of his injuries, George Douglas is fatally wounded, and Mary's forces retreat. The effect of this tragic outcome is not lightened by Mary's leaving for England under Elizabeth's promise of safe conduct (Chapter 38, the last), or by the knowledge that Roland and Catherine were married two years later; the reader knows too well what fate these events have foreshadowed for Mary, and he is unconcerned, as he has been throughout the novel, with "the little love intrigue". Structurally, the narrative concerns the fictional protagonist; but as is sometimes the case in Scott's novels, the emotional emphasis is upon the historical character. In an observation which could be applied directly to The « II, 39.

THE ROMANCES

43

Abbot, Lord David Cecil has commented incisively on this aspect of the Waverley novels: One of the first rules of the novel is that the emphasis of form should fall in the same place as the emphasis of interest, that the characters and episodes where the author's imagination is burning brightest shall be the most important characters and episodes in the plot. But since Scott has imagined them both separately and with very little reference to each other, as often as not the contrary happens. The emphasis of the plot is, as it were, always pulling against the emphasis of interest.44 The story of Mary is one of the many "fine things" which Scott has brought into his novels by means of a sequence of events which belong structurally to a fictional protagonist. As stated above, it is difficult to categorize the tragic romances; in The Abbot the general rule that the protagonist is passive is broken, in that Roland acts effectively in one of the major events of the novel and attempts to act in another. However, he is not able to change the tragic outcome of Mary's destiny, and the conclusion of the narrative seems to indicate that it is to his advantage that he is to be separated from the historical figure who has been the emotional center of the novel. An interesting though not extensive contrast may be drawn between the conclusion of The Abbot and that of The Heart of Midlothian. As shown above, the incidents occurring after the structural conclusion of The Heart oj Midlothian form a section having a tone much more tragic than that of the body of the narrative. The opposite is true in The Abbot. Following Mary's sad departure, the reader learns (in five pages rather than five chapters) that Roland is not illegitimate, that he will inherit the Avenel estate, that he later renounces Catholicism, and that he and Catherine are to be married. But the reader does not care, for even before Chapter 21 his emotions have begun to focus on Mary to the exclusion of concern for Roland, who seems simply to be drawn along as the inexorable tides of history sweep the Queen of Scots toward her doom. Roland escapes because he is fictional; Mary cannot because she is historical. The departure of Mary, depicted in the last paragraph structurally belonging to the narrative, might be taken as symbolic of the plight of the historical figure as he vanishes into history, leaving the fictional characters still "alive" and in a sense immortal in their fictional existence: **

"Sir Walter Scott", The Atlantic

Monthly,

CL (October, 1932), 493.

44

THE ROMANCES

The sails were hoisted, the oars were plied, the vessel went freshly on her way through the firth, which divides the shores of Cumberland from those of Galloway; but not till the vessel diminished to the size of a child's frigate did the doubtful, and dejected, and dismissed followers of the Queen cease to linger on the sands; and long, long could they discern the kerchief of Mary, as she waved the oft-repeated signal of adieu to her faithful adherents and to the shores of Scotland.45 It will be necessary in Chapter IV to return to the matter of the tragic and determined historical character vs. the (comparatively) happy and free fictional protagonist. At the moment it is sufficient to note that the change of tone did not deter Scott from attempting to graft a happy ending, however briefly suggested, onto a structurally tragic narrative in order to indicate an important difference between the two kinds of characters involved. In Kenilworth historical characters predominate. It would be possible to view Edmund Tressilian as a typical passive protagonist were it not for the facts that emphasis on Amy Robsart and Dudley, Earl of Leicester, far outweighs the attention given to the fictional character, and that the structure of the narrative concerns them rather than Tressilian.4* There is also a historical character of great importance who is unique among Scott's creations. Throughout the novel, the Iago-like Richard Varney functions almost as a principle of evil in action,47 and it is he who is largely responsible for manipulating the passive Leicester and for bringing destruction upon all of them.48 The defining event occurs in Chapter 16. In order to prevent Queen Elizabeth's probable dismissal of his master Leicester from the court, Varney swears that Amy, to whom Leicester is secretly married, is his own wife, and Leicester agrees to the lie. They are here tampering with the accepted social structure, and ultimately they suffer for it. In Chapters 35 and 36 the crisis takes place; Amy almost persuades «

II, 313; Ch. 38. Ian Jack has said that "Although there are no great characters in the book the simple romance of Amy's plight inspired a work which is an almost unqualified success, within the severe limitations of the historical romance" ("The Waverley Romances", pp. 199-200). In this novel the limitations are indeed severe, since the major characters are historical. 47 See Wilmon Brewer, Shakespeare's Influence on Sir Walter Scott (Boston, 1925), pp. 321-328, for a discussion of the similarities of Othello and Kenilworth. 48 Scott's tale, based on the popular version of the story in Ashmole's Antiquities of Berkshire, distorts the facts; one of the distortions, as pointed out by Buchan, is that Scott "traduces, contrary to the evidence, both Varney and Tony Foster" (Sir Walter Scott, p. 232). 48

THE ROMANCES

45

Leicester to confess the truth and acknowledge her as his wife, but Varney has determined that she must die to save his own life, which is endangered by his deception of the Queen. He therefore convinces Leicester of Amy's guilt with Tressilian, her former suitor. Leicester then also determines that she must die. Following this decision, Leicester changes his mind about Amy's death and sends a counter-order (Chapter 38), but he is too late. The forces already in motion prove to be inexorable and move swiftly to the conclusion of the tragedy. The catastrophe occurs in Chapter 41. Varney and Anthony Foster arrange and effect the death of Amy. Varney is taken prisoner by Tressilian and Sir Walter Raleigh, then kills himself, and Foster is found dead. In the summary of subsequent events, the reader learns that Amy's father, Sir Hugh Robsart, died and left his estate to Tressilian, who emigrated to Virginia, and that Leicester later died by swallowing poison he had intended for someone else. The atmosphere of inevitable tragedy found in Kenilworth links it to the other tragic romances, but it differs from them in that historical characters are involved in the structure of the narrative, in each of the three dramatic moments. Like most of Scott's historical characters, Leicester and Amy are tragic and their fate is determined; unlike the fates of other such figures, however, their tragedy appears to result from the evil machinations of another character, Varney. His motivation is ambition; he wishes to keep his master in the good graces of the court at any cost, so that he may advance his own career. Certain qualities of Kenilworth are not unlike those of allegory: an active principle of evil (Varney) manipulates a potentially worthy but mistaken and passive principle of good (Leicester) in order to enhance both of them in the eyes of a dispenser of rewards and punishments (Elizabeth). Both, however, are destroyed; a man cannot deny his legal wife and behave as a suitor of his queen without incurring serious penalties for innocent people involved with him as well as for himself. The tragic outcome of the narrative demonstrates again the impossibility of successful interference with the accepted social structure. St. Ronan's Well is partially dominated by the tragic tone which pervades the novels under discussion here. This work, however, is the result of Scott's unfortunate attempt to blend social satire with tragedy,49 4S

"It is intended . . . to give an imitation of the shifting manners of our own time . . . " (Introduction, p. ix). For this reason Scott chose St. Ronan's Well, "a mineral spring", as the setting; he felt that in a satirical novel of manners he could use to advantage the character types likely to be found at a fashionable wateringplace.

46

THE ROMANCES

a combination which could hardly produce a satisfying narrative. Also detrimental to the tale was the fact that Scott was prevailed upon to make an incomplete revision of it; Ballantyne and Constable persuaded him "to alter a story in which a young lady of birth and refinement was permitted to suffer the same wrong as they had taken no exception to, in a still more grievous shape, in the case of Effie Deans, who was only a peasant girl".50 As a result of the alteration, it is not until quite late in the narrative that the reader is made aware of certain earlier events, knowledge of which is essential to a full understanding of the story. Although the novel is therefore confusing in details, the major events nevertheless evoke a tragic atmosphere. The defining event takes place in Chapter 18, when the Earl of Etherington, Valentine Bulmer, asks John Mowbray, laird of St. Ronan's, for the hand in marriage of his sister, Clara Mowbray, so that he can inherit the estate of St. Ronan's. Clara, however, is in love with Francis Tyrrel, Bulmer's half-brother, and it is learned later that Bulmer once "married" Clara by impersonating Tyrrel, again in an attempt to acquire the estate. In Chapter 35 the crisis occurs. Mowbray has learned of Clara's disgrace (the part of the story which is left most shadowy), and when he confronts her with it, she does not deny it. He then says that she must now legally marry the hated Bulmer in order to save her name. The catastrophe takes place in Chapters 38 and 39. After the truth of her seduction is revealed by means of an unlikely coincidence, Clara goes mad and dies. Mowbray kills Bulmer and flees to the Continent, and Tyrrel, the passive protagonist, who has been completely unable to hold back the disaster, disappears and is thought to have gone into a Moravian monastery. That the characters associated with the social satire of the novel do not appear in a summary of the narrative structure is indicative of Scott's lack of success in weaving together a novel of manners and a tragedy. The early chapters present Lady Penelope Penfeather, Sir Bingo Binks, and others of their set, and show Tyrrel's appearance among them in the village; the emphasis of the story then shifts to the tragic TyrrelClara-Bulmer involvement. Scott brings nothing new to the realm of social satire, but he does interest the reader in the moving, although confused, story of Clara's fate. St. Ronan's Well presents no historical characters, but Clara herself is in some respects similar to Scott's his60

Baker, The History of the English Novel, VI, 194. See also pp. 193-198 for further discussion of the alteration and the resulting narrative confusions.

THE ROMANCES

47

torical figures in other novels. Her sad past of betrayal and ruin, her "history", determines her destiny, just as Mary's future is shaped by the unchangeable past. Clara's fate bears resenblances also to that of Effie Deans and, clearly, to that of the quasi-historical Lucy Ashton; in fact, the aura of doom surrounding in particular the crisis and catastrophe is strongly reminiscent of The Bride of Lammermoor, which had been published five years earlier. Although Clara is similar to historical characters, it is obvious that she is more like the primarily fictional Effie Deans. That Clara's punishment should be greater than Effie's is a function of Scott's social attitudes. Having violated accepted standards, Clara, as a member of the upper class, can never return to society; more was required of her than of Effie, and her fall was greater. On the other hand, Effie, although she can never achieve real happiness, can be partially redeemed because, as a member of the lower class, less could justifiably be expected of her. The implication is clear: morals are relative to social class, and some classes are "better" than others. In one of the most widely admired of the tragic romances, Old Mortality, the structure is progressive rather than crucial; the three dramatic moments consist of definition, confirmation, and culmination. In this novel, the theme indicated by the logical outcome of these three moments is a tragic one, but material has been added, following the structural conclusion of the narrative, in an effort to create a happy ending for a sequence of events the outcome of which could only be unhappy. In this respect Old Mortality forms an interesting comparison with The Abbot. As in many of Scott's novels, the story proper of Old Mortality does not begin until Chapter 2; here the narrative opens at a "wappenschaw", a forced gathering, by royal command, of troops made up of hinds and tenants. Also present are Lady Margaret Bellenden and her granddaughter Edith, and the Royalist-Puritan conflict is suggested. In Chapter 3 the protagonist, Henry Morton, appears; his situation is defined in Chapter 5 when he decides to offer protection from the English soldiers to John Balfour of Burley, in spite of Balfour's dangerous Puritan sentiments. Morton does not know at this time that Balfour is implicated in the murder of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, royalist and representative of the Church of England. But not only is Morton unaware of pertinent facts; his apparent "choice" is no choice at all. The decision to hide Balfour is forced on him when Balfour

48

THE ROMANCES

reveals that he once saved the life of Morton's father. Thus the protagonist finds himself committed to a certain course of action without proper knowledge of the issues and having been given no real choice in the matter. Muir has said that often in the Waverley novels the protagonist "may be caught up into a political struggle which he has not chosen, and in which he becomes involved by circumstances".51 This statement is particularly applicable to Morton. A series of complicating events follows the definition and leads to the confirmation, found in Chapter 21. Here Morton is persuaded by Balfour to help lead the rebels, although he has by now learned of the murder of the Archbishop and disapproves not only of it but of many of the Puritans' methods. Again the protagonist is forced to act against his rational judgment and almost against his will. The culmination occurs in Chapter 32, in the battle of Bothwell Bridge between the Covenanters and the Royalists. Morton's men, who have distrusted him from the beginning, refuse to follow him, and the rebels are defeated. That Morton has little control over his destiny is indicated by Scott's comment after Morton has been taken prisoner by Claverhouse: H i s hours f l o w e d o n less anxiously than at any time since his having c o m m e n c e d actor in public life. H e was n o w , with respect to his fortune, like a rider w h o has flung his reins o n the horse's neck, and, while he abandoned himself to the circumstances, was at least relieved f r o m the task of attempting t o direct them. 5 2

The action draws to a logical close in Chapter 36, as the judicial council exiles Morton for his part in the rebellion. There remain, however, eight chapters. Morton returns from his tenyear exile on the Continent53 and rescues the fair lady, not from a dragon but from financial ruin, by retrieving Edith's estate, Tillietudlem, 51

The Structure of the Novel, p. 35. II, 164; Ch. 35. 53 In commenting on this ten-year lapse in the narrative, Scott said, "It is fortunate for tale-tellers that they are not tied down like theatrical writers to the unities of time and place, but may conduct their personages to Athens and Thebes at their pleasure, and bring them back at their convenience" (II, 184; Ch. 37). It is quite true that Scott thought of himself primarily as a "tale-teller"; and Henry James has stated that, unlike the intents of the earlier "moralists" in fiction (e.g., Richardson, Fielding), Scott's sole purpose was to amuse the reader. James said, "We may best express Scott's character by saying that, with one or two exceptions, he was the first English prose story-teller" ("Fiction and Sir Walter Scott", in Notes and Reviews [Cambridge, Mass., 1921], p. 10). Scott simply was not alarmed by such matters as ten-year lapses in his tales. 52

49

THE ROMANCES

from the hands of Balfour. In Chapter 44 Balfour is killed as he and his small forces approach Tillietudlem; Evandale, Morton's only rival for the hand of Edith, is wounded in this fray and dies after melodramatically joining the hands of Edith and Morton. None of these incidents has structural relationship to the body of the novel as developed by the definition, confirmation, and culmination. The three dramatic moments in Old Mortality can lead logically only to unhappiness: the defeat and exile of the protagonist. That this situation should exist is the result of two matters: the passive protagonist forfeits happiness by not responding properly to the demands confronting him in the dramatic moments of the structure of events; and the Scott protagonist cannot achieve success by identifying himself with extremes (such as radical Puritanism) rather than seeking the middle way. Furthermore, Scott's attitude toward history as tragedy is implied by the fact that Morton can achieve happiness only after he extricates himself from the historical events upon which the narrative is based. The structure of The Bride of Lammermoor is climactic; as in the comic romances The Black Dwarf, A Legend of Montrose,

and Castle

Dan-

gerous, there is in this tragic romance an uninterrupted movement in one direction toward an intensely dramatic moment at the conclusion. In this narrative, there is a perhaps stronger evocation of mood than in any other of Scott's novels. The story (which, characteristically, does not begin until Chapter 2) opens with the funeral of old Lord Ravenswood. From that moment until the final scenes, a spirit of tragic fatality broods over the events, an atmosphere heightened by the prophecies of old Alice (a creature with at least some kinship with Meg Merrilies in Guy Mannering and Noma in The Pirate) and by Caleb's repetition of the prophecy of an "auld sang": When the last laird of Ravenswood to Ravenswood shall ride, And woo a dead maiden to be his bride, He shall stable his steed in the Kelpie's flow And his name shall be lost for evermoe.

When Edgar Ravenswood and Lucy Ashton meet in Chapter 5, the reader is aware that they will love and also that they are doomed. The mood is lightened from time to time by the comic machinations of Caleb, Edgar's old family servant; but the pervading feeling is that of tragedy, and when in Chapter 20 Edgar decides to heed the warning of Alice and to leave rather than risk letting his and Lucy's love destroy

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them, he instead finds himself plighting his troth to Lucy as if his actions and destiny were in the hands of powers completely beyond his control. In the final three chapters of the novel, the forces which have been gathering and growing since the opening come to a climax, as in rapid succession Lucy is forced into marriage with the hated Bucklaw, becomes insane, stabs her husband, and later dies; and Edgar, riding to the duel with Colonel Douglas Ashton as "the murderer of his sister", falls into quicksand and perishes. This novel has one of the most powerful endings Scott ever wrote: "A large sable feather had been detached from [Edgar's] hat, and the rippling waves of the rising tide wafted it to Caleb's feet. The old man took it up, dried it, and placed it in his bosom." 54 The prophecy is fulfilled, and, unlike Scott's usual detailed summary of subsequent events, the concluding remarks are limited to one page. Una Pope-Hennessy has commented that The Bride oj Lammermoor "has an unforgettable conclusion".55 And Thomas Seccombe has observed that T h e cumulative force of [the] auguries is overwhelming, and yet our interest in the story is strengthened instead of being destroyed by our foreknowledge of the conclusion. T h e usual necessity of reserve seems abrogated here. Big tragedy has this privilege. T h e reader hears the wheels of an avenging Fate groan heavily along the distant roads. Scott f o r o n c e hurts us. 5 0

Seccombe also states that what sets this novel apart from Scott's other works is perhaps primarily the fact that "it is an artistic whole".57 The second comment explains the first, and that the novel is an artistic whole and therefore has the power to hurt us is traceable in some degree to the fact that its structure is climactic. There is movement in one direction only, a building-up of effect so that the reader's emotions are aroused, sustained, and then released. Scott has used the same plan of organization in the other novels characterized by climactic structure - all build to one moment of intensity at the conclusion: in The Black Dwarf it is the forced wedding which is broken up by the Dwarf, and in A Legend oj Montrose and Castle Dangerous it is a battle followed by a 54

P. 451; Ch. 35. Railo, in The Haunted Castle, p. 287, has called attention to Edgar as an example of the dark hero who meets a tragic fate. See also above, p. 30, note 18, and below, p. 67, note 14. 55 Sir Walter Scott, p. 88. 56 "The Bride of Lammermoor", in Scott Centenary Articles (London, 1932), p. 84. Originally published in TLS, June 5, 1919. " Ibid., p. 85.

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wedding. The Bride of Lammermoor, however, is more powerful than these because of its evocation of atmosphere. Grierson has said, "Though written in prose, it is the most poetic tragedy in our literature since the Elizabethans." 58 Like The Heart of Midlothian, The Bride of Lammermoor has some affinities with the novel of sensibility. In both of these Waverley novels, the problem arises from emotions of the human heart. In the former a solution (also presented in terms of the human heart) is possible because the protagonist is active; Jeanie's goodness and integrity carry the day. In the latter, however, no solution is shown because the protagonist is passive; had Edgar, motivated by emotions not unlike Jeanie's, undertaken to act, the story would perhaps have had a different outcome. But this is speculation; the novel stands as Scott wrote it, a narrative with a passive protagonist and a tragic ending. Perhaps the author felt the same tragic forces at work in the quasi-historical material upon which The Bride of Lammermoor is based that he apparently felt to be operative in history proper. The category of the romances, those novels in which the events are causally related, contains the larger portion of Scott's fiction, and the eighteen romances (out of the twenty-six novels in the Waverley group) also include the majority of his most-admired works. The structure of events in the romances, and the relationship of the protagonist to those events, as presented in this chapter, indicate that the way of thought58 underlying the Waverley novels is in general an eighteenth-century view, a conclusion which is discussed further in Chapter IV.

18

H. J. C. Grierson, "Scott and Carlyle", in Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, XIII (Oxford, 1928), 101. 59 The phrase "way of thought" is perhaps preferable to the more common term "philosophy" since, strictly speaking, the latter denotes a rigorous and systematic process of logical reasoning. In its looser definition, however, denoting beliefs, concepts, and general attitudes, "philosophy" is acceptable here.

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In Some Observations on the Art of Narrative, Phyllis Bentley has raised and answered the following question: What is it that [the novelist] sees? The world of the particular novel which is at present engaging him; a tremendous three-dimensional pageant of life, not endless, but rolling continuously past the novelist's mental eye. A seething flux of phenomena, continually changing, continually transmuting as to some of its items, continually rolling, sweeping, surging, sparking and banging by.1 Such a description of the world which the novelist sees conveys fairly accurately the effect created by many of Scott's works; it is particularly accurate in regard to that group of novels here designated as the "chronicles", the narratives characterized by an episodic rather than a causally related structure of events. Henry James has observed that Scott's novels "were written without pretense; all that has been claimed for them has been claimed by others than their author. They are emphatically works of entertainment." 2 Like Miss Bentley's, this statement has special relevance to the chronicles; works which are written primarily for entertainment, as Scott's apparently were, are perhaps unlikely to show in their structure the author's careful control.3 Within a comment on Scott's general purpose in the Waverley novels, Woodberry has called attention to the fact that some of the novels are similar to chronicle plays: The faults which criticism charges to Scott's form largely proceed from a too limited and rigid conception, from the point of view of construction, of what narrative art consists in. In fact his novel bears, in its relation to the 1

(New York, 1947), p. 4. "Fiction and Sir Walter Scott", p. 13. 3 Note, however, the fact that when Scott deliberately turned his attention as a novelist to the "principles of composition . . . best suited to the historical novel", as he did in The Abbot, the structure which he used was that of a causally interrelated sequence of events. See above, p. 41. 2

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more unified type, some resemblance to the chronicle play in relation to the more organized drama. He seeks, under the impulse of his historic sense, a broader effect than any tale of individual life can give - a social effect. He is apt to set his particular story in a stream of general events, to which the fortunes of the individuals are related, but the interest is less in the plot than in the stream of events.4 The term "chronicle" thus seems an appropriate one to apply to those narratives whose structure is episodic, those novels in which, as Woodberry has put it, "the progress of the tale is managed by a succession of scenes". 5 Scott's own comments on his intention to present the reader with "a series of pictures" and to use plot "to bring in fine things" have already been given (see Chapter I, p. 19). In his review of Jane Austen, Scott indicates further the nature of his own methods: Let anyone cut out from the Iliad or from Shakespeare's plays everything . . . which is absolutely devoid of importance or interest in itself; and he will find that what is left will have lost more than half its charm. We are convinced that some writers have diminished the effect of their works by being scrupulous to admit nothing into them which had not some absolute, intrinsic, and independent merit. They have acted like those who strip off the leaves of a fruit-tree, as being of themselves good for nothing, with the view of securing more nourishment to the fruit, which in fact cannot attain its full maturity and flower without them.6 Scott was never willing to "strip off the leaves" from his works, a fact which the structure of the chronicles makes especially clear. As pointed out above, Scott thought of himself as a tale-teller 7 and called attention to the way in which his proposed "regular mansion turns out a Gothic anomaly". 8 He was an improviser, not a methodical planner; but as Baker has said, "He improvised with such a grip of all that mattered that he could . . . make a short cut straight to the summit ridges of wonder, terror, and suspense." 9 Not only did Scott utilize plot to bring in fine things, but he also liked to include within a narrative more than one story. As Jedediah Cleishbotham, the "editor" of Tales of My Landlord, said, "Peter Pattieson [the putative author of the Tales], in arranging these Tales, hath more consulted his own fancy than the accuracy of the narrative; nay, . . . he hath sometimes blended two or three stories together for the mere grace 4 5 6 7 8 9

Great Writers, p. 58. Ibid., p. 59. Miscellaneous Prose Works, XVIII, 229. Old Mortality, II, 184; Ch. 37. The Fortunes of Nigel, Introduction, p. xxxi. The History of the English Novel, VI, 146.

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of his plots." 10 Scott here presents his own attitudes by attributing objections to Cleishbotham, the pedant; Scott did not hesitate to "blend two or three stories together", as the most cursory glance as his intermingling of history and fiction will show. The chronicles, then, are that group of the Waverley novels whose structure is characterized by a series of episodes rather than by the causally interrelated dramatic moments found in the romances. The group consists of eight novels: Guy Mannering, The Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, The Betrothed, The Fair Maid of Perth, Redgauntlet, The Monastery, and Count Robert of Paris. In addition to having an episodic sequence of events, the chronicles are in general characterized by a passive hero and a happy ending; there are, however, exceptions: in The Fair Maid of Perth, Henry Gow is more active than the hero of a typical chronicle, and in Redgauntlet there are two heroes, a major passive one and a minor more nearly active one. These two novels will be considered separately. The Monastery and Count Robert of Paris, both of which have been judged failures, will also be commented upon individually. Of the remaining chronicles - Guy Mannering, The Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, and The Betrothed The Fortunes of Nigel may be taken as structurally representative. The narrative of The Fortunes of Nigel opens with Lord Nigel Olifaunt having come to London in an attempt to obtain payment from James I of a debt created when Nigel's father had lent money to James. Nigel's cause is taken up by George Heriot, who lends him money and persuades the King to give him (Heriot) certain jewels so that he can furnish more money to Nigel and thus forestall Peregrine Peterson from seizing the Olifaunt estate of Glenvarloch. Heriot then introduces Nigel to the court, where James grants his supplication for payment and where he meets Huntinglen and Buckingham. Shortly thereafter, Huntinglen's son, Lord Dalgarno, involves Nigel in some of the vices of the aristocracy, particularly gambling, in which Nigel unwillingly takes part. Thus far in the novel (through Chapter 14) Nigel has been completely passive, allowing his movements to be directed by others. Soon, however, he performs a deed; it is his sole significant action in the novel, and it is undertaken rashly, on the basis of emotion and without proper knowledge of the issues involved. As Nigel walks in the Park, Sir Mungo tells him of his reputation as a puny gamester; Charles the Prince of Wales then appears with his attendants and suggests to Sir Mungo that Nigel should be in Germany fighting (such a suggestion being tantamount 10

Old Mortality,

Introduction, pp. xvii-xviii.

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to an order); and Dalgarno, a part of the court group, ignores Nigel. Thinking that Dalgarno must be responsible for the court's changed attitude toward him, Nigel draws his sword and challenges Dalgarno (Chapter 16). It immediately develops that this action is a Star Chamber offense, having occurred in the Park and in the presence of the Prince. Nigel escapes apprehension, however, and resumes his passive role as he is helped by Reginald Lowestoffe, a degenerate young Templar, to flee to Whitefriars ("Alsatia", a place of refuge for criminals) and to take lodgings at old Trapbois' house. While there, Nigel delivers a significant soliloquy on his status and actions: She [Martha Trapbois] is right, and has taught me a lesson I will profit by. I have been, through my whole life, one who leant upon others for that assistance which it is more truly noble to derive from my own exertions. I am ashamed of feeling the paltry inconvenience which long habit had led me to annex to the want of a servant's assistance - 1 am ashamed of that; but far, far more am I ashamed to have suffered the same habit of throwing my own burden on others, to render me, since I came to this city, a mere victim of those events which I have never even attempted to influence-a thing never acting, but perpetually acted upon - protected by one friend, deceived by another; but in the advantage which I received from the one, and the evil I have sustained from the other, as passive and helpless as a boat that drifts without oar or rudder at the mercy of the winds and waves. I became a courtier, because Heriot so advised it; a gamester, because Dalgarno so contrived it; an Alsatian, because Lowestoffe so willed it. Whatever of good or bad has befallen me hath arisen out of the agency of others, not from my own. My father's son must no longer hold this facile and puerile course. Live or die, sink or swim, Nigel Olifaunt, from this moment, shall owe his safety, success, and honour to his own exertions, or shall fall with the credit of having at least exerted his own free agency. I will write it down in my tablets, in her very words - "The wise man is his own best assistant." 11 Nigel has indeed been "a thing never acting, but perpetually acted upon"; but in spite of wishing to do otherwise, he remains to the end of the novel unable to direct his own actions. While Nigel has been hiding in the house of Trapbois, Margaret Ramsay has undertaken to arrange his release from Alsatia and his escape to Scotland. Following her anonymous directions, Nigel goes down the Thames with some bargemen. Here he attempts to act, but his effort is not effective; he forces the bargemen, instead of taking him to a Scottish ship in accordance with Margaret's plans, to put him ashore at Greenwich, because he has heard that the King is there; but when 11

II, 78-79; Ch. 22.

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he meets the King and tries to plead his case, he is seized for a traitor and taken to the Tower. Here he remains until he is released from the treason charge through Margaret's intercession with the King. By means of a series of complicated events involving many of the minor characters, Nigel's estate is then restored to him and he is able to marry Margaret. It is significant that Nigel's only actions - challenging Dalgarno and going ashore at Greenwich - are ineffective because the first is the direct result of emotion improperly controlled and the second is undertaken without sufficient information. Throughout the Waverley novels there is the recurrent suggestion that emotion, especially if it is coupled with a lack of proper knowledge, is a dangerous and untrustworthy basis for action. Rash deeds can have only bad results, and faulty knowledge of issues involved in deeds - whether the protagonist is Nigel, or Henry Morton, or Edward Waverley - will, unless corrected, lead surely to disaster. On the other hand, rational decisions, dedicated to preserving the existing social and political situation, lead to worthy actions within Scott's novels. Nigel is "punished" for his rashness and not until he resumes his position as the passive protagonist and ceases to disturb the flow of events can he be redeemed. It is interesting to note that the Introductory Epistle to The Fortunes of Nigel contains, in the discussion between Captain Clutterbuck and the Author of Waverley, some of Scott's best-known remarks on the structure of the novel. The author points out that the great masters have been content to amuse the reader and have not concerned themselves with strict plots minutely planned and carefully executed, and he offers the quotation, surely one of his favorites, "What does the plot signify, except to bring in fine things?"12 Baker has said that the story of Nigel is "a tissue of complications. It goes like clockwork, but it is not always clear to the reader how it does go." 13 Scott's comments and Baker's remark apply both to The Fortunes of Nigel and to the other chronicles. In these novels, the "tissue of complications" lacks the interrelated dramatic moments found in the romances and proceeds toward its happy outcome as a series of episodes over which the protagonist has little control.14 In the chronicles the protagonist does not perform actions which determine the outcome of the narrative, and yet he is rewarded in much 12 13 14

See The Fortunes of Nigel, pp. xix-xlii; partially quoted above, pp. 15-16. The History of the English Novel, VI, 188. See Appendix F for summaries of the chronicles not discussed in this chapter.

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the same manner as the protagonists who "earn" their reward in the romances. It would seem that, because they are not confronted with the three dramatic moments of the romances, moments at which they would be forced to respond either positively or negatively (i.e., by acting or refusing to act), the protagonists of the chronicles are not required to act at all. It is enough if they accept things as they are. Given those conditions, they are just as likely as the protagonists of the comic romances to receive reward, because for the protagonist whose fate is not bound up with the tragic determinism of history, the beneficent principles operating in Scott's fictional world can apply. The protagonist of The Fair Maid of Perth, Henry Gow (or Smith), is more active than Nigel; he is not able, however, to shape the course of the events. The narrative structure of this chronicle includes three major threads: that of the Duke of Rothsay, in his relationship to his father, King Robert of Scotland, and in his desire for Catharine Glover; that of the antagonism between Clan Chattan and Clan Quhele, whose chief, Conachar Maclan, also loves Catharine; and that of the love story proper, between Gow and Catharine. In each of these interwoven parts of the tale, Gow is importantly active. When attacked by three or four men, he cuts off the hand of someone who is later discovered to be Sir John Ramorny, a follower of Rothsay (Chapter 4); he takes part in the climactic battle between Clan Chattan and Clan Quhele in order at last to confront Conachar (Chapter 34); and he of course wins Catharine, the Fair Maid of Perth (Chapter 36). Gow also participates in many minor events throughout the novel, but neither in these nor in the major events does he shape the outcome of the action. He simply responds vigorously to the series of incidents as they present themselves to him. In describing the atmosphere of The Fair Maid of Perth, Wagenknecht has give a summary which is also applicable to the structure of this novel: The Fair Maid of Perth . . . is the wildest and darkest of all Scott's books. It begins with the cutting off of a man's hand; in the course of the action a criminal is hanged on the gallows, later to be cut down and revived; Dwining, a really horrible villain, commits suicide; so, probably, does the pitiable Conachar; even the fool, Oliver Proudfute, is murdered in the streets. The hero, Henry Smith, is less civilized than Scott's heroes generally are, a fighting fool whose life is stained with sin, and whose heroic qualities are not always under control. The almost saintly heroine, Catharine Glover, stands out very effectively against this dark background.15 15

Cavalcade of the English Novel, p. 162.

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This comment on the "dark background" of the novel incidentally indicates the episodic nature of its structure; all of the events listed, and many more, are contained in the narrative, but there is little more causal relationship among them than the comment suggests. The structure of The Fair Maid of Perth is atypical of the chronicles in the the protagonist is relatively active; it is typical, however, in that the protagonist does not materially affect the final outcome of events, and in that these events consist of a series of episodes, which lead to a happy ending, rather than of a causally related sequence of happenings. Another of Scott's chronicles, Redgauntlet, must be considered separately. Unlike any other novel in the Waverley group, this narrative involves two protagonists who are similar in background and personality but who differ in that one, the more important, is passive and the other is by comparison active. Although the major emphasis of the events is upon the passive protagonist, Darsie Latimer, the focus of these events shifts repeatedly from him to the active protagonist, Alan Fairford, and back again to Darsie. A brief glance at the narrative method of this novel will demonstrate the episodic nature of its construction. The first thirteen chapters are epistolary, consisting of a series of letters exchanged between Darsie, on his itinerary through the Scottish countryside, and Alan, in Edinburgh.18 These chapters are headed "Letter I", 16

Una Pope-Hennessy contends that the use of "the old epistolary style of Richardson" is evidence that the novel "must date in part from the eighteenth century" (Sir Walter Scott, p. 58). Dame Una's original argument against the accepted chronology of the Waverley novels appeared in "St. Ronan's Well", The Scotsman, March 16, 1932, p. 10, and was republished in the Saturday Review of Literature, VIII (April 23, 1932), 686. She was supported in her contentions by Donald Carswell in "St. Ronan's Well", The Scotsman, March 22, 1932, p. 7, continued in the issue of April 2, 1932, p. 11, and in TLS, May 5, 1932, p. 331; in "The Legend of Abbotsford", Nineteenth Century, CXII (1932), 374-384; and in "Sir Walter's Secret, a Literary Inquest", Scots Magazine, X X n.s. (1933), 192198. According to the "apprentice theory" of Dame Una and Mr. Carswell, there were five novels whose composition antedated that of Waverley: St. Ronan's Well, Redgauntlet, Guy Mannering, The Monastery, and The Black Dwarf. Four years later in a joint article, Rob Roy was added to the list in "Rob Roy: a New Interpretation", The Glasgow Herald, July 3, 1937, p. 4. Waverley was now supposedly the seventh novel written. The problem of the chronology of the Waverley novels is beyond the scope of this paper; it is interesting to note, however, that Mody C. Boatright offers additional evidence that Redgauntlet is an early work: "So far . . . as the treatment of the supernatural furnishes a means of determining the chronology of Scott's novels, The Black Dwarf, Guy Mannering, Redgauntlet, and The Monastery would seem to ante-date Waverley. The evidence is strongest in the cases of The Black Dwarf and The Monastery, where occur serious violations of rules governing the use of

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"Letter II", and so on. Following Letter XIII, Scott changes his method of presentation to "Chapter I", entitled "Narrative", and continues this method in Chapter II; he then introduces, for Chapters III to I X , the "Journal of Darsie Latimer". Chapters X through X V I are headed "Narrative of Alan Fairford", Chapters X V I I through X X "Narrative of Darsie Latimer", and Chapters X X I through X X I I I "Narrative of Alan Fairford." The final chapter in the novel, after the action has closed, is entitled "Conclusion by Doctor Dryasdust, in a Letter to the Author of Waverley". The result of this shifting focus is that there is for neither protagonist a clearly interrelated sequence of happenings such as are to be found in the romances. Many incidents occur, and the supernatural in prose fiction, which were laid down by Scott previous to the publication of these novels. There are no such violations in Guy Mannering, but Scott confesses that the book underwent considerable change in plan, and the changes show that Scott planned the work before he had reacted against the practices of the romancers in England and Germany. There is no documentary evidence of such a change of plan in Redgauntlet, but the intermittent use of the epistolary style indicates that the book has been revamped, and the treatment of fate and foreknowledge associates the work with Guy Mannering" ("Scott's Theory and Practice Concerning the Use of the Supernatural in Prose Fiction in Relation to the Chronology of the Waverley Novels", PMLA, L [March, 1935], 260-261). However, Robert D. Mayo has convincingly answered these arguments in "The Chronology of the Waverley Novels: The Evidence of the Manuscripts", PMLA, LXIII (September, 1948), 935-949. Mayo shows that analysis of the handwriting, general appearance, and watermarks of eleven manuscripts in the Morgan Library indicates that the chronology of writing equates with the chronology of publication. The materials studied by Mayo include the manuscripts for four of the six novels on which Pope-Hennessy and Carswell base their arguments in the "apprentice theory" of Scott's early work being revised much later for publication. Mayo says: "To 'explain' the weaknesses of the novels by segregating those members of the series with certain defects, and assigning them to a hypothetical 'novitiate' is to misunderstand the fundamental art of fiction as practiced by Scott. It implies a definite progress in the command of his medium which the real facts hardly warrant. There is change, but is there real evolution in form between Waverley and Woodstock or The Fair Maid of Perth? Is Ivanhoe actually more 'mature' than The Antiquary, or The Fortunes of Nigel more 'accomplished' than The Bride of Lammermoor? In reality, what 'process of development' (to employ Dame Una's term) is displayed in Scott's handling of the novel form comparable to that which occurs, say, between Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones or between Northanger Abbey and Emma? Goethe thought Waverley the greatest of the series - an exaggerated opinion, no doubt; but it highlights the significant fact that Scott wrote by far the best part of his fiction in the first half of his novelist's career. He was an accomplished story-teller long before he was either a poet or a novelist. This was his real novitiate. And he could tell a story as well in 1814 - that is, write an effective scene, bring a new character onto the stage, make his episodes 'go' - as he could in 1826 or 1829, better sometimes, for his health and high spirits were still unimpaired. This is what the chronology of the novels really demonstrates. Sometimes Scott's extemporizations hit the mark, and sometimes they fell short. . . . " (p. 949).

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they lead up to one of the most effective and moving endings that Scott ever wrote, as the Jacobite cause comes to its final collapse;17 but as Baker has observed of the composition of Redgauntlet as a whole, "In construction, the book is as irregular, easygoing, almost haphazard, as any of Scott's novels."18 Its irregularity, indeed, is greater than that of any other Waverley novel, in that it is the only novel in which Scott changes his narrative method in the fashion here shown, and the only novel having two protagonists. These two protagonists, by their very presence, create and at the same time emphasize the episodic nature of the structure of Redgauntlet. Early in the novel, Darsie (the more important protagonist, who is passive) is rescued from the tide at Solway by a taciturn man who later is revealed as his uncle, the heir of the house of Redgauntlet. The uncle, who goes by the name of Herries of Birrenswork, is caught up in the final struggles of the Scottish Jacobites, and the major movement of the novel concerns his efforts to win Darsie, as the newly discovered last heir of Redgauntlet, to his cause and thereby to increase the Jacobite strength. Through all of his uncle's mysterious machinations, Darsie remains helpless; he is held prisoner for a time, carted about the country, and finally introduced against his wishes to a gathering of the Jacobites. Alan, on the other hand, is comparatively active. As a young Edinburgh lawyer and Darsie's good friend, he is of little importance to the central emphasis of the novel, the thwarted Jacobite uprising; he is, however, active in his attempts, first, to locate Darsie after his disappearance, and then to release him from the hands of his uncle. Alan's efforts are for the most part ineffectual, but he at least undertakes an active role. The episodic quality of the events is thus a result of the changing focus of the novel, as Scott shifts his point of view among Alan, Darsie, and the omniscient author, by means of epistle, journal, and third person narration, in what is certainly the most "irregular" of the chronicles. Although the Jacobite cause dwindles rather tragically to nothing, the novel ends happily for the new heir of Redgauntlet, the passive protagonist. Again the reader notes the tragedy of the historical character and the comparative happiness of the fictional protagonist. 17 In "Scott's Redgauntlet", David Daiches has stated that "Redgauntlet is the novel in which Scott found the most adequate 'objective correlative' for his feelings about Scottish history and for the complex attitude toward the relation between tradition and progress which explains so much of the workings of his mind and imagination" (in From lane Austen to Joseph Conrad, ed. Robert C. Rathburn and Martin Steinmann, Jr. [Minneapolis, 1958], p. 46). 18 The History of the English Novel, VI, 199.

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Two of the chronicles, The Monastery and Count Robert of Paris, have been considered, both by Scott and by modern critics, as failures. In neither novel is there a coherent series of events; in both many narrative threads are introduced and left unresolved, incredibilities multiply, mysteries remain unexplained, and at last the story is hastily lopped off, leaving the reader confused and unsatisfied. These two novels are the only tales in the Waverley group which produce such an effect. Scott himself stated that "the Author considered . . . [The Monastery] as something very like a failure".18 In a more detailed criticism, he said, The incidents were inartificially huddled together. There was no part of the intrigue to which deep interest was found to apply; and the conclusion was brought about, not by incidents arising out of the story itself, but in consequence of public transactions with which the narrative has little connexion, and which the reader had little opportunity to become acquainted with.20 Indeed, it is difficult even to determine what Scott intended the central emphasis of the narrative to be. Although the title seems irrelevant to the tale,21 apparently he meant the story to deal primarily with the sixteenth-century conflicts over church property;22 certainly this element begins to emerge toward the end of the novel and leads to an off-stage battle in Chapter 36. Prior to this next-to-last chapter, however, many other fictional components have been introduced. Halbert Glendinning (the apparent protagonist) quarrels rather meaninglessly with Sir Piercie Shafton, an unsuccessfully drawn Euphuist; 23 in the duel which follows, Sir Piercie is "killed" but later unexplainedly reappears alive; the villain, Julian Avenel, seems to have his hand against every man; Mysie, the simple rustic daughter of a miller, falls in love with Sir Piercie; and most puzzling of all the plot elements, throughout the first half of the novel the spectral (and apparently Protestant) White Lady of Avenel plagues Father Eustace and seems to aid Halbert, for reasons which re19

The Abbot, Introduction, p. ix. The Monastery, Introduction, p. xxvi. 21 This situation is not unusual in the Waverley novels. The worst offender in this respect is Old Mortality. 22 In the Introduction to The Monastery, Scott said, "The general plan of the story was to conjoin two characters in that bustling and contentious age who, thrown into situations which gave them different views on the subject of the Reformation, should, with the same sincerity and purity of intention, dedicate themselves, the one to the support of the sinking fabric of the Catholic Church, the other to the establishment of the Reformed doctrines" (p. ix). As clear as this statement is, however, the indicated theme does not emerge from the novel in any very forceful manner. 23 See The Monastery, Introduction, pp. xx-xxii. 20

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main mysterious and unresolved because the matter is simply dropped.24 The incoherent series of incidents in this chronicle leads to no satisfactory conclusion whatever. Scott gives an accurate judgment when he says, "I considered myself as having been unsuccessful in the Monastery [sic]."25 Baker's comment seems wise: "On the whole, The Monastery is best regarded as spade-work for the more shapely sequel, The Abbot";2e beginning where The Monastery had ended, The Abbot (see pp. 41-43, above) has clarity, force, and interest, qualities which are painfully lacking in its predecessor. Another of the chronicles, Count Robert of Paris, must also be regarded as a failure. Within the context of the political intrigues in the court of Alexius at Constantinople in 1098, the oafish Count Robert and his amazon wife Brenhilda move through an unconvincing series of adventures involving a captured Saxon guard, a blind man who is not blind, and an ourang-outang. Exhausted, ill, and within two years of his death, Scott in this, his next-to-last novel, "showed but smouldering gleams of his former strength".27 Indeed, in his condition of physical and mental depletion, he set for himself a difficult task in undertaking an Eastern tale rather than another of the Scottish stories he loved and knew so well.28 Una Pope-Hennessy states that Lockhart recognized Count Robert as "hopeless rubbish" 29 and encouraged Scott to turn his remaining energies to his final tale, Castle Dangerous, in which he was again on solid Scotch footing. Little is known of Scott's critical opinion of Count Robert of Paris; it is the only Waverley novel for which he did not write an Introduction for the edition of 1829-1833. Lockhart states in his "Advertisement" prefacing the 1833 publication of the novel that "Sir Walter Scott transmitted from Naples, in February 1832, an Introduction for Castle Dangerous·, but if he ever wrote one for a second edition of Count Robert of Paris, it has not been discovered among his papers." 30 However, references to Scott's discouragement 24

Ian Jack states of the supernatural White Lady of Avenel and Sir Piercie Shafton that "It is difficult to say which of them is the more resounding failure" ("The Waverley Romances", p. 199). "5 The Abbot, Introduction, p. x. The History of the English Novel, VI, 181. " Ibid., p. 206. 28 In The Talisman, Scott had created a fairly successful Eastern tale, although for the most part the major characters are English or Scottish. As Hillhouse points out, however, the "Scotch novels" have always been "recognized as his greatest and most representative work" (The Waverley Novels and Their Critics, p. 343). 29 Sir Walter Scott, p. 65. M P. ix.

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with the progress and dissatisfaction with the final form of the novel may be found in his Journal. 31 Count Robert of Paris clearly represents an unsuccessful use of the chronicle form; the series of episodes contains incredibilities, lacks interest, and leads nowhere. Scott's use of an episodic structure, as seen in the chronicles, was less successful than his use of a causally interrelated structure of events, as seen in the romances. Only eight of the twenty-six Waverley novels may properly be called chronicles. Of these eight, two (The Monastery and Count Robert of Paris) have long been accounted failures; of the remaining six, only two or three (Guy Mannering, The Fortunes of Nigel, and perhaps Redgauntlet) have been given an appreciative critical reception; the other three (Peveril of the Peak, The Betrothed, and The Fair Maid of Perth) lie somewhere in the middle ground - certainly not failures, but on the other hand not representative of Scott's best work. And even the three most admired chronicles have never received the praise awarded to some of the romances, for example, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, or The Bride of Lammermoor - all nearly universally included in any list of Scott's "masterpieces". Scott was more successful when, either by choice or by chance, he made use of the dramatic moments found in the romances than when he constructed narratives on the episodic principle of the chronicles. The significance of this fact, seemingly related to the underlying philosophical attitudes implied in the Waverley novels, is commented upon in Chapter V.

*» The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, pp. 697-698, 707-712, 714-718, 722-724, 729-730, 733-734, 736, 738-739, 750, and 783.

IV THE MEDIOCRE HERO A N D HISTORY

It has long been noted that Scott's characters may be divided into three general classes: "the heroes and heroines - that is, the lovers; national types, usually of humble origin, peasant, beggar, and outlaw; and actual historical characters - kings, queens, statesmen and generals." 1 Among other related matters, this chapter will deal with the two groups which, for the present purpose, are of structural importance, the heroes and the historical characters; it will show the nature and function of these two groups, the meaning of their nature and function, and the meaning of history, as indicative of the way of thought underlying the Waverley novels. The general feeling of the critics has been that Scott's protagonists are relatively unimportant; as Baker has said, "Scott's heroes are merely persons to w h o m a lot of things happen." 2 Other critics have attempted 1

Smock, "Sir Walter Scott's Theory of the Novel", p. 92. Since the second classification, the "national types . . . peasant, beggar, and outlaw", is not to be discussed elsewhere, it may be pointed out here that this group contains some of Scott's most widely admired achievements in characterization. Smock says, "He is the first English novelist to write of the peasant with profound understanding and sympathy. Dandie Dinmont, Cuddie Headrigg, Hobbie Elliott, David and Jeanie Deans surpass their only contemporary rivals, the portraits of Miss Edgeworth, and are, one is tempted to say, the greatest representations of the peasant in our literature - certainly they stand unchallenged until the time of Thomas Hardy" (p. 104). In Sir Walter Scott, Bart. (New York, 1938), Sir Herbert J. C. Grierson suggests that Scott's success in depicting this kind of character is traceable to the fact that such characters are relatively non-intellectual beings: "The characters he draws with most power and distinctness are just those to whom the circumstances of their lives present few problems of thought, whose lives are governed by simple, elemental feelings" (p. 313). And Baker, in The History of the English Novel, says that the "beings from the wilds of human nature", i.e., Meg Merrilies, Edie Ochiltree, the Children of the Mist, and Hayraddin, "have something in them of the universal" (VI, 149). In A Dictionary of Characters in the Waverley Novels (London, 1910), Margaret F. A. Husband lists Scott's creations as consisting of 2,836 characters, including thirty-seven horses and thirty-three dogs. 2 The History of the English Navel, VI, 147.

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to set forth the reason that the heroes appear to be unimportant. Grierson observes, "If [Scott] did not enter very deeply into the souls of the characters whom he drew, it was because he never entered very deeply into his own motives. . . . It is this dislike of analysing feeling that makes his heroes of so little interest."3 Another reason for the apparent unimportance of the protagonists is offered by Daiches when he says, "They are not heroes in the ordinary sense, but symbolic observers" of the historical context within which they move.4 Agreeing that the heroes are not particularly significant, Woodberry states that Scott's primary interest was not in the individual but in the "world full of people": The encompassing of a larger world is round about the story. Like all the greatest writers, Scott gives the great scene of life always; it is a crowded stage, a world full of people. In such a scene the hero may occupy an unimportant place; the interest is not primarily in him. It is a feudal, commercial, political world, filled with fixed types; there is an abundance of stock characters; to set forth the manners and concerns of this world largely in a vivid human way, to be, as it were a public historian, not a writer of private memoirs, is Scott's scope. 5

Buchan, however, holds that Scott's "stockish heroes and heroines" have a degree of importance far greater than that usually ascribed to them, that they "should properly be considered as part of the structure of the tale", and that this point is "worth dwelling on, for it is bound up with the meaning of romance": In a great painting . . . there is always some prosaic object which provides a point of rest for the eye, and without which the whole value of the picture would be altered. This duty is performed in literature by the ordinary man . . . ; [these men] are, so to speak, the "eye" of the storm which rages about them, and serve to measure the departure of the others from virtue, sanity, moderation, or merely normal conduct. Each is like the centre of a great wheel, which has little movement in itself but controls the furious revolutions of the c i r c u m f e r e n c e . . . . The fantastic, the supernatural and the quixotic are heightened in their effect by being shown against this quiet background; moreover, they are made credible by being thus linked to our ordinary world.«

The authoritative Marxist critic, Georg Lukäcs, has stated that "The 'hero' of a Scott novel is always a more or less mediocre average English gentleman."7 In developing and substantiating this statement, Lukäcs s 4 5 β 7

Sir Walter Scott, Bart., p. 68. "Scott's Achievement as a Novelist", p. 93. Great Writers, pp. 58-59. Sir Walter Scott, p. 342. The Historical Novel, p. 33.

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has commented extensively upon the contrast between the mediocre hero and the heroes of the epic: As central figures they [Scott's heroes] provide a perfect instrument for Scott's way of presenting the totality of certain transitional stages of history. This relationship was most clearly recognized by the great Russian critic, Belinsky. He accepts that the majority of the minor characters are more interesting and significant as human beings than the mediocre main hero, yet he strongly defends Scott. "This had indeed to be the case in a work of purely epic nature, where the chief character serves merely as an external central hub round which the events unfold and where he may distinguish himself merely by general human qualities which earn our human sympathy; for the hero of the epic is life itself and not the individual. In epic, the individual is, so to speak, subject to the event; the event over-shadows the human personality by its magnitude and importance, drawing our attention away from him by the interestingness, diversity and multiplicity of its images."8 And again: The heroes of the epic are, as Hegel says, "total individuals who magnificently concentrate within themselves what is otherwise dispersed in the national character, and in this they remain great, free and noble human characters". Thereby "these principal characters acquire the right to be placed at the summit and to see the principal event in connection with their individual person". The principal figures in Scott's novels are also typical characters nationally, but in the sense of the decent and average, rather than the eminent and all-embracing. The latter are the national heroes of a poetic view of life, the former of a prosaic one. It is easy to see how the contrasting conceptions of the hero spring from the fundamental requirements of epic and novel. Achilles is not only compositionally the central figure of the epic, he is also a head taller than all his fellow actors, he really is the sun round which the planets revolve. Scott's heroes, as central figures of the novel, have an entirely opposite function. It is their task to bring the extremes whose struggle fills the novel, whose clash expresses artistically a great crisis in society, into contact with one another. Through the plot, at whose centre stands this hero, a neutral ground is sought and found upon which the extreme, opposing social forces can be brought into a human relationship with one another. . . . Scott always chooses as his principal figures such as may, through character and fortune, enter into human contact with both camps.' The hero as "a neutral ground" for the opposing forces will be discussed below. 8

•

Ibid., p. 35. Ibid., p. 36.

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The underlying assumption, then, of many of Scott's critics has been that the typical Scott hero is, for whatever reason, almost completely passive. This assumption is central to Alexander Welsh's The Hero of the Waverley Novels, in which the author explores some of the ramifications of the thesis, "Scott's heroes are passive": The distinctive inactivity of the passive hero may be appreciated simply by contrasting him with the popular hero who succors the unfortunate, who makes his own fortune and wins the girl he loves, or who changes the course of history. 10 The hero of the Waverley Novels is seldom a leader of men. He is always a potential leader, because of his rank as a gentleman. He represents, however, a social ideal, and acts or refrains from acting according to the accepted morality of his p u b l i c . . . . Instead of a commander, this hero is an ideal member of society. 11 His nearly complete passivity is a function of his morality - the public and accepted morality of rational self-restraint. 12 In sum the virtues of a passive hero are that he may be a stranger [within a given culture] and that he is at the mercy of his author. 1 3

To the last observation might be added the idea that if the hero is indeed "at the mercy of his author", then the author has an unusual opportunity to do as he pleases with the hero, and to "bring in fine things". Another observation made by Welsh concerns the dualism of light and dark types among Scott's heroes and heroines; Welsh states that the hero chooses "the blonde heroine of society" because, as suggested in the above quotations, the passive hero is "the hero of civil society".14 This critical consensus that Scott's heroes are passive is founded on some valid evidence; it is, however, too broad a generalization. It adequately represents the nature of the hero in the tragic romances and in the chronicles, but it fails to recognize the fact that in the thirteen comic romances - comprising one half of the twenty-six Waverley novels and containing much of Scott's most admired work - the protagonist is ac10

(New Haven, 1963), p. 40. Ibid., p. 35. 12 Ibid., p. 36. 13 Ibid., p. 52. 14 Ibid., p. 82. Welsh comments that "The denouement of the romance conveys the final inexorable difference of dark and light-haired heroines. Brenda, Rowena, Alice, Jeanie, Margaret, and Rose inherit property, marry passive heroes, and live happily ever after. The passionate careers of Minna, Rebecca, Fenella, Effie, Hermione, and Flora burn out - in exile or the cloister, or upon the sands of Zetland" (p. 76). See also above, p. 30, note 18, and p. 50, note 54. 11

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tive. In the comic romances the hero, when confronted with the dramatic moments of the novel's structure, actively makes decisions in the light of what is expected of him, and receives happiness. In the tragic romances, the hero fails to act and happiness is withheld. In the chronicles, which in general are less successful than the romances, the hero is passive but nevertheless is rewarded. Before the significance of these facts can be detailed, it is necessary to note Scott's comments on determinism and to mention briefly some major eighteenth-century ideas. Each of the three categories of the Waverley novels - the comic romances, the tragic romances, and the chronicles - contains within the novels statements on determinism. These statements, made both by characters and by the author, emphasize the idea that man is not free; and yet this tenet appears less than clear in the light of other comments within the novels, and certainly is not supported by the structural analysis of the action and the protagonist's relation to that action. Several of these statements on determinism may be noted. In the category of the comic romances, Bois-Guilbert says to Rebecca, "Thou and I are but the blind instruments of some irresistible fatality, that hurries us along, like goodly vessels driving before the storm, which are dashed against each other, and so perish." 15 Using the same image, Noma of the Fitful Head states, "We drive on the stream of fate, without oar or rudder. You had no purpose this morning of visiting the kirk of St. Ringan, yet you are here; you had no purpose but a minute hence of being at Kirkwall, and yet you will go thither." 16 In the tragic romances as well, determinism of one sort or another is clearly asserted. The author says, His [Ravenswood's] prepossessions accordingly, however obstinate, were of a nature to give way before love and gratitude; and the real charms of the daughter, joined to the supposed services of the father, cancelled in his memory the vows of vengeance which he had taken so deeply on the eve of his father's funeral. But they had been heard and registered in the book of fate. 17

And the steward Dryfesdale states his belief, "That which was written of me a million of years ere I saw the light must be executed by me." 18 Among the chronicles, Chapter 4 of Guy Mannering may be noted, in which fate again plays a part as the newborn baby's horoscope is cast and Meg Merrilies spins wool to tell his fortune. But another of 15 le 17 18

Ivanhoe, II, 253; Ch. 39. The Pirate, II, 80; Ch. 25. The Bride of Lammermoor, p. 227; Ch. 17. The Abbot, II, 190; Ch. 32.

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the chronicles, Redgauntlet, contains what is probably the most extensive comment on determinism to be found in the Waverley novels. Herries, the heir of Redgauntlet, makes the following declaration to Darsie Latimer: "The privilege of free action belongs to no mortal: we are tied down by the fetters of duty, our moral path is limited by the regulations of honour, our most indifferent actions are but meshes of the web of destiny by which we are all s u r r o u n d e d . . . . "Nothing is the work of chance, nothing is the consequence of free-will: the liberty of which the Englishman boasts gives as little real freedom to its owner as the despotism of an Eastern sultan permits to his slave. The usurper, William of Nassau, went forth to hunt, and thought, doubtless, that it was by an act of his own royal pleasure that the horse of his murdered victim was prepared for his kingly sport. But Heaven had other views; and before the sun was high, a stumble of that very animal over an obstacle so inconsiderable as a mole-hillock cost the haughty rider his life and his usurped crown. D o you think an inclination of the rein could have avoided that trifling impediment? I tell you, it crossed his way as inevitably as all the long chain of Caucasus could have done. Yes, young man, in doing and suffering we play but the part allotted by Destiny, the manager of this strange drama, stand bound to act no more than is prescribed, to say n o more than is set down for us; and yet we mouth about free-will, and freedom of thought and action, as if Richard must not die, or Richmond conquer, exactly where the author has decreed it shall be so!" 1 9

The import of such statements seems clear enough, until the reader recognizes several additional facts - that the novels also contain apparently contradictory statements, that observations which indicate a belief in determinism are never made by the protagonist, and that in the comic romances the protagonist actively makes his own way through the various forces which surround him. For example, the author makes a plainly antideterministic observation: "The freedom of will is permitted to us in the occurrences of ordinary life."20 But of greater significance is the reply which Darsie gives to Herries' deterministic assertions quoted above. Scott's protagonists usually do not express themselves at all on the philosophic problem of freedom of the will; Darsie is unique among the protagonists in stating his opinion clearly. It is of the utmost importance, however, that the opinion he gives reflects the position of the non-philosophic, practical mind. The question is beyond his understanding and, one gathers, outside his interest; he simply wishes to "live honestly and die hopefully": Ιβ 20

II, 12; Ch. 8. The Pirate, I, 205; Ch. 13.

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"I will not - indeed I feel myself incompetent to argue a question of such metaphysical subtlety as that which involves the limits betwixt free-will and predestination. Let us hope we may live honestly and die hopefully, without being obliged to form a decided opinion upon a point so far beyond our comprehension.... " B u t . . . I call your attention to the fact that I, as well as you, am acted upon by impulses, the result either of my own free-will or the consequences of the part which is assigned to me by destiny. These may b e - n a y , at present they are - in direct contradiction to those by which you are actuated; and how shall we decide which shall have precedence? You perhaps feel yourself destined to act as my jailer. I feel myself, on the contrary, destined to attempt and effect my escape. One of us must be wrong, but who can say which errs till the event has decided betwixt us?"21

Although Darsie is a passive hero, his statement represents the attitude of - and could have been made by - any one of Scott's protagonists. Whether they are active or passive, they are characterized by acceptance of the social and political status quo, by a pragmatic turn of mind ("One of us must be wrong, but who can say which errs till the event has decided betwixt us?"), and by the belief that each man must, in the words of the Anglican catechism, "do his duty in that state of life to which it hath pleased God to call him". These attitudes suggest a continuance of that acceptance of the world which was one aspect of eighteenthcentury thought. Scott's protagonists are not concerned with "a question of such metaphysical subtlety" as free-will vs. determinism; they take things as they are. Before returning to the fact that in many of the Waverley novels the hero is active, it is appropriate to note some comments on eighteenthcentury thought and on Scott's relationship to that century. Basil Willey uses the conveniently descriptive phrase "cosmic Toryism" for the eighteenth-century concept of "whatever is, is right".22 Alan McKillop summarizes the ideas of acceptance and of the reward that accrues to virtue: Emphasis on man's natural participation in and approval of this world-plan made for an optimistic view of human nature, and at the same time the good was described as having useful and pleasant consequences for man. Thus the good . . . is also vindicated by an end-product of happiness.23

And Arthur Lovejoy points out that "Man's duty was to keep his place, and not to seek to transcend it. . . . The good for a being of a given "

Redgauntiet, II, 13-14; Ch. 8.

" "

The Eighteenth Century Background (London, 1940), p. 43. English Literature from Dryden to Burns (New York, 1948), p. 128.

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grade . . . must consist in conformity to its type", and that "no great improvement in men's political behavior or in the organization of society could be hoped for".24 Many scholars have noted Scott's close affinity with eighteenth-century thought and have commented on various aspects of that affinity. Lukäcs calls attention to Scott's quest for a "middle way", a search typical of the eighteenth-century avoidance of extremes: His world-view ties him very closely to those sections of society which had been precipitated into ruin by the industrial revolution and the rapid growth of capitalism. Scott belongs neither with the ardent enthusiasts of this development, nor with its pathetic, passionate indicters. He attempts by fathoming historically the whole English development to find a "middle way" f o r himself between the warring extremes. . . . This basic tendency finds immediate expression in the way he constructs his plot and selects his central figure. The "hero" of a Scott novel is always a more or less mediocre, average English g e n t l e m a n . . . . What is expressed here, above all, is a renunciation of Romanticism, a conquest of Romanticism, a higher development of the realist literary traditions of the Enlightenment in keeping with the new times. 25

This avoidance of extremes as one of Scott's tenets is also commented upon by J. A. Bramley: What Scott has to say comes in the nature of a warning: we must beware of fanaticism whether in politics or religion. Historian as he was, and deeply versed in the ways and affairs of men, he saw that fanaticism, no matter how good appeared to be the cause that had engendered it, robbed men of their balance, destroyed their judgment, perverted their senses of truth and finally ended by destroying their sanity, charity, human compassion, thus reducing them to the level of wild beasts. 28

Scott's underlying emphasis on reason and sanity, indicated by Bramley, has also been noted by others. Daiches, in speaking of "Scott's central vision", has said that "his characters and situations are always observed by some one standing in a middle-of-the-road position. That position is the position of the humane, tolerant, informed and essentially happy man. It is fundamentally the position of a sane man."27 And, one might add, these are the characteristics of one kind of eighteenth-century man. Emphasizing this same sanity, Patrick Cruttwell has said that Scott was not "a pioneer of romanticism" but an Augustan: his romantic material 24

The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 200, 203. The Historical Novel, pp. 32, 33. 26 "The Genius of Walter Scott", Contemporary Review, CXCIII (March, 1958), 152. 27 "Scott's Achievement as a Novelist", p. 119. 25

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was treated by a humorous, wordly-wise, extrovert, and sane mind.28 Of Scott's place within the Romantic movement, C. H. Herford remarks that "what he has in common with the Romantic temper is simply the feeling for the picturesque, for colour, for contrast" and that Scott "was intellectually fast rooted in the eighteenth century".29 Davie notes that Chapter I of Waverley contains a plea for the neo-classical principle that the artist should deal with "nature", the constant elements inhuman nature beneath race, period, and occupation.30 Repeatedly offering evidence of Scott's emphasis on society and its preservation, Welsh has commented upon Scott's use of the journey, an element of the Waverley novels mentioned above (see p. 27; see also below, and Appendix C). Welsh states, "As in the old romance, which moved from court to country, the journey is undertaken with the ultimate expectation of affirming rather than criticizing existing values. The superiority of society Scott takes for granted." 31 Welsh also identifies society as the source of Scott's ethical and moral values, as seen in the novels: Morality for Scott is neither natural nor individual; it is artificial and s o c i a l . . . . Scott cannot rationally accept the notion of spontaneously generated e t h i c s . . . . When Scott thinks of morality, he speaks in terms of regulation and restraint — rational and social functions. 3 2

And finally, in a statement which is the concrete application of McKillop's generalization (that in one aspect of eighteenth-century thought "approval of this world-plan . . . was described as having useful and pleasant consequences for man"), Welsh comments on the ending of a typical Waverley novel: T h e ending was dictated b y . . . the myth that property (real happiness) automatically devolves upon those w h o respect the existing arrangement of things. The over-all plot of each romance was fixed by this ideal. 3 3 28 "Walter Scott", in From Blake to Byron, Vol. V of The Pelican Guide to English Literature (Harmondsworth, 1954), pp. 110-111. 28 The Age of Wordsworth (London, 1916), pp. 121, 120. 30 The Heyday of Sir Walter Scott, p. 26. The passage from Waverley is as follows: "The force of my narrative [is] upon the characters and passions of the actors; - those passions common to all men in all stages of society, and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it throbbed under the steel corslet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the present day. . . . It is from the great book of Nature, the same through a thousand editions, whether of black-letter, or wire-wove and hotpressed, that I have venturously essayed to read a chapter to the public" (I, 4-5). 31 The Hero of the Waverley Novels, p. 84. 32 Ibid., pp. 66, 67. For further discussions of rationality vs. sensibility, see above, p. 30, note 19, and below, pp. 78-81. 33 Ibid., p. 150.

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With these points in mind, attention may now be given first to the function of the protagonists and then to the function and meaning of history.

FUNCTION OF THE PROTAGONISTS

The importance of an eighteenth-century view as the major philosophical principle underlying the Waverley novels is made clear not only by the foregoing critical comments, but also by an analysis of the structural function of the protagonists. As suggested above, the predominance within the novels of statements indicating a deterministic view can be misleading; not only do statements of the opposite import sometimes appear, but the protagonist, whose beliefs should certainly be considered in any evaluation of the philosophical basis of the novel, never subscribes to an attitude of philosophical determinism. Furthermore, in the comic romances the protagonist makes choices and engages in appropriate actions which directly affect the outcome of his fortunes. To illustrate, Quentin Durward may be taken as structurally representative of the thirteen comic romances, that group of the Waverley novels in which the protagonist is active and the outcome is happy. In this novel, each of the three dramatic moments centers on Quentin's decision to thread his own path, in the light of what is expected of him by society, among the various forces influencing his actions. Two of these forces are of primary importance - the demands of Louis XI as Quentin's master, and the protagonist's own sense of honor and duty as a representative of his particular social class, the Scottish nobility. Quite early in the novel, he has received from his uncle a brief initiation lecture, a warning about the tenor of life in Louis's court.34 The structure of the novel is progressive; but before the definition occurs, the author explains what the nature of the conflict is to be: The reflection that he [Quentin] had been planted like a marksman in a thicket who watches for a stag, to take the life of the noble Count of Crevecceur, had in it nothing ennobling. It was very true, that the King's measures seemed on this occasion merely cautionary and defensive; but how did the youth know but he might be soon commanded on some offensive operation of the same kind? This would be an unpleasant crisis, since it was plain, from the character of his master, that there would be destruction in refusing, while his honour told him there would be disgrace in complying.35 34

»

I, 70-74; Ch. 5. See below, pp. 79-80. 1,181-182; Ch. 11.

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The definition of Quentin's situation occurs in Chapters 17 and 18. Having overheard the plot of Hayraddin, Quentin determines to renounce (insofar as possible) his allegiance to Louis, who has violated honor and duty by sending him on a mission apparently leading to his death, and to go to the Bishop of Liege. Quentin then changes the party's route to the left bank of the Maes in order to protect Isabelle, whose safety he now considers his foremost obligation. His action is determined by his concept of his honor and duty as her assigned protector. In the confirmation, a similar decision is made; Quentin's testimony in the trial of Louis is so carefully phrased that he is able to help exonerate Louis from the charges against him and at the same time to avoid lying (Chapter 32). Here again Quentin walks a narrow way between the two major forces of the conflict, and here again he actively affects the outcome of the novel. The culmination takes place in Chapter 37, the last, in the battle between Burgundy and de la Marek. Isabelle has been offered as a prize to the man who kills de la Marek, and Quentin has accordingly managed to engage him in combat. In the midst of their struggle, however, Quentin hears a call for help from Gertrude Pavilion, the daughter of a magistrate of Liege who had helped him and Isabelle escape from the city, and he is compelled by his sense of honor and duty to go to her aid, leaving "the wild Boar of the Ardennes" to be dealt with by his uncle. Finishing Quentin's work, the uncle kills de la Marek and is thus entitled to claim Isabelle. But Quentin is not to be without his reward. He has actively and courageously faced each of his decisions and has responded in the "proper" manner. The reader can hardly be surprised when the uncle renounces his prize, Quentin's noble birth is revealed, and even Crevecoeur is led to say, "Why should I grudge this youth his preferment, since, after all, it is sense, firmness, and gallantry which have put him in possession of WEALTH, RANK, AND BEAUTY?" 36

The structure of Quentin Durward thus implies values current in the eighteenth century. The statement of Crevecoeur is the last within the novel proper37 and serves well as a summary of these values. The protagonist has accepted the world as he found it, sought the middle way, done "his duty in that state of life to which it hath pleased God to call him", and has therefore been rewarded with certain material and concrete goods. In exercising "sense, firmness, and gallantry" Quentin 38

II, 342; Ch. 37. There follow two pages in which Scott comments on some of the differences between fifteenth-century weddings and those of the early nineteenth century.

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has acted in the manner approved by eighteenth-century rationalism and thus is entitled to receive "wealth, rank, and beauty". 38 The statements of Lovejoy and of McKillop may be recalled: man's duty is to keep his place39 and good conduct has pleasant consequences.40 By acting as he does, Quentin has conformed to what is expected of his type and has kept his place in the order of things; he therefore deserves and receives happiness. In Chapter 24, Crevecoeur makes the following sarcastic observation to Quentin: Y o u have had, I imagine, a happy journey through Fairyland - all full of heroic adventure, and high hope, and wild, minstrel-like delusion, like the gardens of Morgaine la Fee. Forget it all, y o u n g s o l d i e r . . . . R e m e m b e r yonder lady only as the honoured Countess of Croye; forget her as a wandering and adventurous damsel. A n d her f r i e n d s - o n e of t h e m I can answer for - will remember, o n their part, only the services y o u have done her, and forget the unreasonable reward which y o u have had the boldness to propose to yourself. 4 1

Quentin's journey, however, has not been through Fairyland; if it had been, he would not have deserved, in Scott's terms, the reward which he receives. Rather, the structure of the novel reveals that Quentin has been faced with a series of situations demanding a response from him and that by his proper actions the reward (which, incidentally, Quentin at this point has never "had the boldness to propose" to himself, except perhaps in his secret heart) is earned. Quentin has indeed observed some of the forms of Fairyland; there are in the novel early references to "castles in the air" and to Isabelle as "The Lady of the Lute" and "the maid of the turret", and Quentin protects this lady on a journey and rescues her from danger. But the basis of his actions is eighteenthcentury rationalism. Although elements of "Fairyland" may appear in the Waverley novels, Scott is not writing "romances" in the traditional sense of the word;42 the primary context within which the protagonist moves is that of the age of reason, not that of "heroic adventure, and high hope, and wild, minstrel-like delusion". 38

See Welsh, The Hero of the Waverley Novels, Ch. IV, for comments on the importance of property as part of eighteenth-century thought and as one of the rewards of Scott's heroes. »· Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, p. 200. 40 McKillop, English Literature from Dry den to Burns, p. 128. 41 II, 120. 42 The reader will recall that "romance" as it is used in this paper denotes a novel having a particular kind of narrative structure. See above, p. 23, p. 25, note I, and p. 26.

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In the other twelve comic romances, roughly the same situation obtains. The protagonist is active and the ending is happy; that is, the protagonist makes choices and performs actions which affect the outcome of the tale, and thereby earns a reward. This reward usually takes the form of lands (e.g., those belonging to Isabelle) and marriage to the heroine (Isabelle herself), and it sometimes includes the revelation or clear establishment of the noble birth of the hero (as is the case with Quentin, although in this novel the reader has from the beginning been aware of his nobility). Among the other comic romances, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian, and Rob Roy - often considered three of Scott's best - have particularly strong resemblances to Quentin Durward in that their structures demonstrate the same implied eighteenth-century rationale: the "choice, proper action, reward" sequence is clear. Jeanie Deans' reasons for acting perhaps are based more on personal feeling and less on the demands of society than are the reasons of Quentin,43 but the sequence is identical; and Edward Waverley and Frank Osbaldistone appear, as far as motivation and its results are concerned, to be Quentin's blood brothers. In the remaining full-length comic romances - The Antiquary, Ivanhoe, The Pirate, The Talisman, Woodstock, and Anne of Geierstein - and in the comic romances characterized by climactic structure - The Black Dwarf, A Legend of Montrose, and Castle Dangerous - the organization of the events and the relationship of the hero to those events indicates the same underlying viewpoint: proper action, in terms of the demands made by the existing arrangement of society, leads the protagonist to material rewards. In half the Waverley novels, then, the hero is far from passive; an analysis of the structure of the novels reveals that the protagonist makes choices and performs actions which shape the outcome of the narrative. In the tragic romances, the hero is passive and the ending is unhappy. In Old Mortality, The Abbot, Kenilworth, and St. Ronan's Well, the protagonist, when faced with the three dramatic moments of the narrative, does not respond positively to their implicit demand for action. Instead, he responds negatively and allows himself to be acted upon by other characters or by circumstances. These conditions hold true also for The Bride of Lammermoor, which, being organized according to climactic structure, has one dramatic moment rather than three; in this novel too the protagonist is passive. The result of these protagonists' failure to act in situations which seemingly call for action is 43 See the discussion of The Heart p. 35 above.

of Midlothian

as a novel of sensibility,

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either that reward is withheld, as in the "logical" ending of Old Mortality (see the discussion on pp. 47-49, above), or that actual tragedy occurs, as in The Bride of Lammermoor, Kenilworth, and St. Ronan's Well (see the discussions on pp. 44-47, and 49-51, above). As pointed out in the discussion of The Abbot (pp. 41-44), structurally this narrative concerns Roland; but the major emphasis of the novel is on Mary so that the reader's emotional response is a function of her tragic fate rather than of the superimposed happy ending sketchily outlined for the protagonist. In the tragic romances, then, may be seen the obverse of the idea expressed by the structure of the comic romances: the hero fails to act and thereby forfeits his happiness. The category of the chronicles - Guy Mannering, The Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, The Betrothed, The Fair Maid of Perth, Redgauntlet, The Monastery, and Count Robert of Paris - contains many of Scott's novels which have been less admired and generally considered less successful than most of the romances (see Appendix F for plot summaries of the chronicles). These narratives are characterized by a passive hero, a happy ending, and an episodic rather than a causally related sequence of events. The chronicles thus lack the primary structural characteristic of the romances, i.e., the interrelated dramatic moments demanding a response by the protagonist. Rather, they proceed as a line of incidents along which the protagonist moves but upon which he has almost no effect. Yet in spite of his passivity, the hero receives rewards identical with those earned by the heroes of the comic romances. The conclusions to be drawn from the relationship of the hero to this kind of structure may be stated as follows. When the hero is faced with no specific situations which demand a response from him (i.e., when the narrative does not present to the protagonist the usual three dramatic moments), then it is not necessary for the hero to be active; he is justified in moving passively among the incidents as they occur. The fact that he is rewarded with lands, love, and rank, even though he has not earned them by engaging in actions, is related to an eighteenth-century view; since "whatever is, is right" and since approval of the world-plan has "pleasant consequences for man", 44 material reward is just as likely to accrue to the good man who abides by the expectations of society even though no specific action may be demanded of him, as it is to the man who successfully engages in appropriate action when it is called for. The eighteenth century's optimistic satisfac-

McKillop, English Literature

from Dry den to Burns, p. 128.

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tion with things as they are and its belief in cosmic benevolism are implied by the structure of the chronicles: the existing world-plan itself seems to guarantee happiness to the individual who accepts and approves of that plan. The structural function of the protagonists of the comic romances, of the tragic romances, and of the chronicles is thus indicative of an eighteenth-century philosophy underlying the Waverley novels. As Ian Jack has said of Scott, "Few major writers have been so unadventurous in their moral judgements. . . . What Dickens did only partially and under restraint . . . Scott did willingly and from conviction."45 Viewed in relationship to the narrative structure of the novels, Scott's protagonists, whether active or passive, demonstrate the author's acceptance of the optimistic strain in eighteenth-century thought. As far as his protagonists are concerned, Scott seems to have lacked the tragic vision, the noble and ennobling view of man as a creature required to act and indeed capable of great action, but ultimately overcome and destroyed by forces even greater than himself. In the world of the Waverley novels, which is at bottom a comic world, the protagonist is rewarded if he performs proper actions. He is also rewarded even though he is passive, if specific actions have not been demanded of him by the events of the novel. Perhaps as an unconscious aspect of Scott's own indefatigable industry, in the Waverley novels the only punishable sin seems to be the failure to act when action is called for - the sin of Sloth. An obvious corollary of the faulty observation that Scott's heroes are passive is the statement that the heroes undergo no growth, change, or development, that "the characters . . . are static - they do not change although our knowledge of them may".46 The latter generalization, like the former, is too broad. That the protagonists of several of the Waverley novels do undergo character growth may be demonstrated without difficulty. One of the themes which interested Scott was that of initiation, the young man's introduction to the world. None of the Waverley narratives can properly be considered an "apprentice" novel,47 but the 45

Sir Waller Scott, p. 31. Smock, "Sir Walter Scott's Theory of the Novel", p. 90. 47 For an exposition of the characteristics of the "apprentice" novel, see Susanne Howe, Wilhelm Meister and His English Kinsmen: Apprentices to Life (New York, 1930), pp. 1-15. Scott's protagonists do, in general, "emerge triumphant, adjusted to life in terms of the author's own conclusions about it" (p. 2), but they do not share in the other characteristics ascribed to the typical "apprentice"; for example, they are not "endowed with exceptional powers of mind and spirit" nor are they misunderstood young men, nor do they have a "sense of the vanity and futility erf "

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theme of initiation into life makes its appearance several times in the form of a movement on the part of the protagonist from romance to realism. The initiation theme has already been mentioned (Chapter II) in connection with Edward Waverley and Frank Osbaldistone. Near the beginning of Waverley, it is said of Edward that he "might justly be considered as ignorant, since he knew little of what adds dignity to man, and qualifies him to support and adorn an elevated situation in society".48 In the course of the narrative, however, Edward is made aware, by means of his growing sense of duty to England and to his family, of the realistic and practical demands which "an elevated situation in society" places upon him as an adult, and near the close of the novel one reads that he "felt himself entitled to say firmly . . . that the romance of his life was ended, and that its real history had now commenced". 49 The same movement is seen in Rob Roy. As has been pointed out above (see pp. 36-39), this novel is the story of Frank Osbaldistone's awakening awareness to filial duty (Chapter 17) and to the relationship between business and politics (Chapter 26); he can no longer be guided by his former emotional concern for himself and his own interests and likes. The theme of initiation is found in other novels as well. In Chapter 2 of Quentin Durward, it is said of Quentin that his whole demeanour bespoke one who was entering on life with no apprehension of the evils with which it is beset, and small means for struggling with its hardships, except a lively spirit and a courageous disposition; and it is with such tempers that youth most readily sympathises, and for whom chiefly age and experience feel affectionate and pitying interest.50

Here is a clear picture of "romantic" youth beginning its journey. Shortly afterward, however, Quentin's uncle informs him of the nature of life at the court of Louis XI and thus changes his sanguine outlook: It might have been expected that, when left alone, Durward would have again betaken himself to his turret, in order to watch for the repetition of those delicious sounds which had soothed his morning reverie. But that was a chapter of romance, and his uncle's observation had opened to him a page of the real history of life.41 all things" (pp. 5, 9). Scott's major concern, as has been stated, was not with the individual but with society. 48 I, 24; Ch. 3. 49 II, 202; Ch. 60. M I, 13. 51 I, 74; Ch. 5.

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It is interesting to note that Scott here has juxtaposed the two terms also used in the second quotation from Waverley, above: "romance" vs. "history". These words seem to epitomize for Scott the two major aspects of human life and to summarize the nature of the change necessary for growth into adulthood. The progression from romance to realism is also suggested in two other novels. Near the close of Anne of Geierstein, the reader is told that Arthur could not but be sensible that not long since all this [the court of Rene, in Provence] would have made him perfectly happy; but the last months of his existence had developed his understanding and passions. He was now initiated in the actual business of human life, and looked on its amusements with an air of something like contempt; so that among the young and gay noblesse who composed this merry court he acquired the title of the youthful philosopher, which was not bestowed upon him, it may be supposed, as inferring anything of peculiar compliment. 5 2

And in Old Mortality the word "romantic" is again used in the sense suggested above: A mild, romantic, gentle-tempered youth [Henry Morton], bred up in dependence, and stooping patiently to the control of a sordid and tyrannical relation, had suddenly, by the rod of oppression and the spur of injured feeling, been compelled to stand forth a leader of armed men, was earnestly engaged in affairs of a public nature, had friends to animate and enemies to contend with, and felt his individual fate bound u p in that of a national insurrection and revolution. It seemed as if he had at once experienced a transition from the romantic dreams of youth to the labours and cares of active manhood. 5 3

Although the theme of initiation is not of primary significance in the Waverley novels as a whole, it assumes a certain degree of importance when one realizes that four of the five "mediocre heroes" who demonstrate the theme are among Scott's most admired creations. The fifth, Arthur de Vere, is not of major interest; but Edward Waverley, Frank Osbaldistone, Quentin Durward, and Henry Morton form a group impossible to ignore.54 They appear in novels which have always been considered among Scott's best, and each of them undergoes character growth as he is initiated into life and as his philosophical viewpoint moves from romance to realism. 52

II, 195 ; Ch. 31. II, 65-66; Ch. 27. 54 Markham Everard, in Woodstock, has some similarities to the members of this group, as he moves away from commitment to Cromwell and toward a nascent sympathy with the Royalists, but he does not seem to be initiated into proper courses of action as clearly as the other protagonists here listed.

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This shift is essentially a change from sensibility to rationality as a basis for action. To ground responses on emotion may be suitable to youth, but the adult, the responsible member of society, must make use of reason. The protagonist who offers the clearest example of this process of change is probably Edward Waverley. His early decisions, to go into the Highlands and then to renounce his allegiance to England and to join the Jacobites, are based on emotional reactions to the situations in which he finds himself. They are, as Davie has said, the responses of a man of sensibility.55 But his later decision (in Chapter 61) to return to London in order to help his uncle is based on reason and a sense of responsibility for his actions and their effects upon others; this decision is the first concrete evidence of the "changed" Edward, for it occurs within three pages after Scott has stated directly that the "romance" of Edward's life was over and its "real history" had begun. By taking this action, Edward shows himself worthy of receiving the rewards which accrue to the protagonist who acts correctly; shortly he is pardoned by the King and is married to Rose, whose patrimonial lands have been restored to her family. Edward is then ready to take his place within the existing social structure; the reader gathers that he now knows "what adds dignity to man, and qualifies him to support and adorn an elevated situation in society". Flora Maclvor's somewhat contemptuous description of Edward's future life as a man of sensibility50 is shown by the outcome of events to have been an erroneous prediction. At the time she made her forecast she was justified, for Edward had not yet established himself as a man of reason rather than sensibility. As the narrative structure of the novel demonstrates, however, he ultimately makes the change. The conclusion to be drawn from the events involving Edward and the other initiates here discussed seems to be that while young men can perhaps afford to be emotional, to be men of sensibility, mature members of society must be rational, must be men of sense. The protagonists do not become unfeeling, but they learn to discipline sensibility and to reject emotion as a guide to action. This shift from romance to realism is also an aspect of the thematic relationship of past and present, an element of the Waverley novels which will be discussed below. One of the most important functions of the mediocre hero is primarily thematic, but is related to the structure of the novels: the hero is a 55 See above, p. 30, note 19. «« II, 139-140; Ch. 42. See also above, p. 30, note 19.

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means of showing the contrast of cultures. As has been mentioned above, Buchan speaks of the Scott hero as "the 'eye' of the storm" or as "the centre of a great wheel",57 and Daiches says that the heroes are "symbolic observers" of their historical surroundings.58 The idea suggested by these scholars is expressed in more detail and its relationship to plot is shown by Lukäcs, who states that it is the task of the hero to bring the extremes whose struggle fills the novel, whose clash expresses artistically a great crisis in society, into contact with one another. Through the plot, at whose centre stands this hero, a neutral ground is sought and found upon which the extreme, opposing social forces can be brought into a human relationship with one another. . . . Scott always chooses as his principal figures such as may, through character and fortune, enter into human contact with both camps. 54

One of the functions of the hero, then, is to serve as "a neutral ground" upon which the opposing elements of the plot conflict can meet. Closely related to that function is the fact that the hero also serves as a neutral ground by means of which Scott can bring into play one of his most-used fictional devices, the contrast of character and the contrast of cultures. Ian Jack has said, "This desire for contrast [of many different kinds] lay very near the heart of Scott's imagination."60 Scott's own comments indicate his interest both in the contrast of character and in the contrast of cultures. Chapter I of Quentin Durward is entitled "The Contrast" (a heading which might well have been applied to a number of other introductory chapters); it depicts the personality differences of Louis XI and Charles of Burgundy. In St. Ronan's Well, Scott's only attempt at a novel of manners, he writes that a wateringplace was chosen as the setting because it is there that "the strongest contrast of humorous characters and manners may be brought to bear on and illustrate each other".61 In Peveril of the Peak he states that having found a suitable subject, he then "invests it with such shades of character as will best contrast with each other".· 2 And in a more extensive comment in The Monastery, Scott again indicates his interest in the contrast of character, this time closely related to a historical conflict: The general plan of the story was to conjoin two characters in that bustling 57

Sir Walter Scott, p. 342. "Scott's Achievement as a Novelist", p. 93. " The Historical Novel, p. 36.