The Hero of the Waverley Novels (ebook)

Argumento de The Hero of the Waverley Novels (ebook)

One of the most influential works on Sir Walter Scott, The Hero of the Waverley Novels is a model for reconstructing ideas common at a given period in time. In this book Alexander Welsh draws upon the entire canon of Scott's fiction to demonstrate its bearing on property and the behavior prescribed for the propertied classes. Analyzing the "passive hero"--the protagonist who is acted upon by outside forces--he shows how Scott became such a powerful influence for nineteenth-century literature and history. Welsh has updated his book with an essay on history and revolution in Old Mortality, another on repression and the social contract in the novels, and an afterword on the contrast of styles.

Originally published in 1993.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.0Bibliographical Note Preface Chronological list of the Waverley Novels I Romance 1 1 Fiction as Projection 1 2 Novel or Romance 6 3 Moral Truth 12 II The Passive Hero 21 4 Two Soliloquies 21 5 Possible Exceptions 26 6 Rationale 31 III Character and Topography 40 7 Dark Heroes 40 8 Blonde and Brunette 48 9 The Highland Line 56 IV Property 63 10 Nature and Convention 63 11 Property in 1814 68 12 The Romance of Property 77 V The Heart of Mid-Lothian 86 13 The Trial of Jeanie Deans 86 14 Society as an Abstraction 92 15 Jeanie Deans Visits the Sick 96 VI Anxiety 101 16 Authority 101 17 The Emotion of the Hero 107 18 Prudence 112 VII Rob Roy 118 19 Francis Osbaldistone 118 20 The Plot 123 21 Tentative Fiction 127 VIII Honor 134 22 Rank in life 134 23 Self-Sacrifice 139 24 Immortality 148 IX Old Mortality 155 25 Henry Morton 155 26 Life and Death 164 27 The Denouement 171 Contrast of Styles in the Waverley Novels 178 History and Revolution in Old Mortality 191 Patriarchy, Contract, and Repression in Scott's Novels 213 Index 243