Robertson, J.F.

English

The thesis analyses the nature and significance of patriotism in the
poetry, fiction and political and historical writings of Walter
Scott. It begins with a survey of the "problem" of Scottish
patriotism and Scott's relation to it. From his own age to the
present day, Scott has generally been seen as a great Scottish
patriot, but it has not often been clear what is meant by this
description, since the idea of Scottish patriotism has, politically
and culturally, been far from simple in the context of post-Union
Britain. In the 20th Century nationalist and left-wing oriented
criticism of Scott has further complicated the issue, and indeed
though most modern literary studies of the Waverley Novels have
identified various kinds of dualism, these have never been fully
explained within a context of patriotism.

The thesis contends that the need to find an acceptable form of
patriotic expression was the fundamental motivation and impetus in
most of Scott's work. The historical context of this claim is then
described: from early historical works though to the social
philosophising of the leading minds of the 18th-Century
Enlightenment, the relationship between Scotland and Britain was of
great importance; repeatedly Scottish writers developed different
methods of allowing these two competing identifications to co-exist.
It was Scott's deliberate and careful life-work to perfect the
articulation of a symbiotic relationship between Scottish and British
patriotisms, first through his poetical romances, then through
historical fiction; finally he put his scheme to a political test in
the episode of the Malachi Malagrowther letters of 1826. The bulk of
the thesis traces this development, drawing evidence from the full
range of Scott's writings.

The thesis argues that Scott's scheme required him to interpret
Scottish history as belonging essentially to the past, culminating in
the 18th Century with the Union and the 'Forty-five. This last also
required him to promote Highlanders and Jacobites as the most
unadulterated representatives of Scottish cultural expression. At
the same time, through all his work a clear pattern is discernible in
which Scott created for himself a role as bard, story-teller and
historian of the Scottish nation: in this role he provided Scotsmen
of his own and later generations with an ideological system designed
to accommodate their sense of Scottish identity within the wider
context of the British Empire. Only in the present century, as the
Scottish-British political and cultural relationship has altered, has
that system become less efficient, and it is in the light of these
changes that the subtleties and complexities of Scott's patriotic
achievement can best be seen

Robertson, James F.

Edinburgh Research Archive

The construction and expression of Scottish patriotism in the works of Walter Scott

https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/7368/1/234140.pdf

The construction and expression of Scottish patriotism in the works of Walter Scott.

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