Abstract
The position of Walter Scott in the history of the novel is an ambiguous one. On the one hand he is credited, most influentially by Georg Lukaics, with the introduction of historical and political subject matter into prose fiction in a way that inaugurates the nineteenth-century practice of socialrealist fiction. Specifically, he is understood to have used the model of historical development posited by the writers of the Scottish Enlightenment as the grand narrative underlying the action of his stories: things happen in a Scott novel, people behave in certain ways, because of their place in a social totality that is itself historically determined.1 The tradition of commentary that emphasises Scott's invention of the historical novel thus tends to ignore or play down (or, even, regret) the fact that the action of a Scott novel is often, on the contrary, generically determined: that his detailed attention to the particularities of historical societies is placed within plots that deploy the conventional tropes and narrative structures of romance. In this essay I wish to explore the role of romance plot-structure in its relation to Scott's realist project, in the case of one particular novel, Guy Mannering of 1815. In doing so, I am drawing on the arguments of Northrop Frye and Fredric Jameson, who take romance to be not simply an extra-realistic principle at work in these texts, but historical realism's
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
