Thesis Presentation

I gave this presentation yesterday for my Thesis Research class... basically it outlines what I want to do with this thesis... or what I think I want to do with this thesis. Sort of. :-)

The Life and Legacy of Sir Walter Scott
An Apology of Story and Tradition in Literature


Well, I don’t want to bore all of you with minor details about Scott and his literature. So without spending too much time on things which I have already touched upon, I’ll try to give you an overview of what I’m looking to research and prove in this thesis (should it be chosen).

Introduction

I’ve entitled this thesis topic “The Life and Legacy of Sir Walter Scott” and subtitled it “An Apology of Story and Tradition in Literature.” Now I did this because I would like to study the life of Sir Walter Scott and learn more about the man whom Dr. George Grant states “almost single-handedly saved England.” Secondly, I believe that this “salvation of England and Scotland” occurred through the literature of Scott. During a time of societal unrest and when many changes were occurring on the face of the society of Great Britain, Sir Walter Scott redirected the attention of the commoner back to the heritage and traditions which might have been forgotten.

The novels and poems of Sir Walter Scott influenced the societies of both countries, and in fact, all of Europe with the ideas of chivalry, nobility, tradition and history which he instilled in them. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said,

“Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, ''Lighthouses'' as the poet said ''erected in the sea of time.'' They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”

In the late 18th Century, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing and spreading throughout Europe and Great Britain. Attention changed from history and the “fine arts” and turned towards efficiency and commodities, inventions and economic growth. Great Britain was losing the culture and heritage for which it was famous. The land of Britons and Saxons, and the infamous feuds which occurred between the Britons and the Scottish… the history between England and Normandy, the tales of the Crusades… all these great stories were quickly fading away.

Who was Sir Walter Scott?

Enter upon the scene Sir Walter Scott. Born on August 15, 1771 and raised in the border territory between Scotland and England, Scott fought sickness and disease as a child. He was educated at home, and then enrolled at the College of Edinburgh at the age of 12, where he studied law and the classics. After being compelled by his father to apprentice as an attorney in his father’s office at the age of 15, he was later called to the Scottish Bar as an advocate with an annual salary of 250 pounds. However, it was around this time that he began to pour all of his energy into a study of Scottish verse and began writing his own poetry and literature. Between the year 1802 and when he died thirty years later, Scott churned out 28 novels which capture the history, heritage, tradition, and stories of England and Scotland. Most of them revolve around some important period in Great Britain’s history, such as Ivanhoe and the time of the Crusades, Rob Roy and Waverly, which are set during the Jacobite Rebellion and the tales of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

According to John Buchan, who wrote an incredible biography of Sir Walter Scott, his mission was like that of Hosea the prophet:

“Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there as in the days of her youth.”

Scott strove to recapture these treasures of the past and bring them back to the forefront of the minds of his people. And his desire for this love and interest on the part of his countrymen inspired a rise in historical and romantic novels. Scott is said to have written the first historical and romantic novels, and I aim to discover why.

Why Scott?

But what do I want out of this? What do I wish to accomplish and show to be extremely important to us as NSA students who live in a world of economic instability, where efficiency is king and the past is… just that… a thing of the past?

The fact is that literature not only reflects a culture, it is a heavily influence upon it.

I hope to show that through the stories of Sir Walter Scott (and I plan to just pick 2 or 3 which summarize fairly clearly what and how Scott accomplished this “salvation of England and Scotland.”) how all of Great Britain and perhaps even greater Europe was brought back to a sense of reality. His novels, and specifically his Tales of a Scottish Grandfather, which provide the majority of Scottish history we have, reminded his contemporaries that they should cherish the tales and stories which are passed down. As Christians it is important for us to remember our legacy, our heritage, our past and if we get caught up in the entertainment of the moment and fail to study these things, our culture and society will crumble (as it is doing now) and fall along the wayside. Because of the wealth and prosperity which we enjoy, we forget where we come from. As responsible Christians and as we think postmillennialy, we must recognize the importance of “story” and recapture the stories of our past and pass them along. Otherwise we have failed our grandchildren and further descendents.

These are the lessons which we should get from Scott’s novels and the impact which they had on his own society. This is “Why Scott” and this is why I believe that we need people like Scott to rise up from the mosh pit of the American culture and give us something to be proud of.