“The Force of Ridicule”: The Ironies of Blackwood’s Magazine and Walter Scott’s The Fortunes of Nigel

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article develops the current scholarly understanding of Walter Scott’s attitude toward irony by analyzing The Fortunes of Nigel (1822) in relation to controversies surrounding Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Co-edited by Scott’s son-in-law, John Gibson Lockhart, Blackwood’s drew criticism for its ironic tone and satirical treatment of public figures. Scott privately warned Lockhart about being involved in such an irreverent journal—and he repeated those warnings more forcefully after a rival magazine editor was killed in a duel. The Blackwood’s controversy provided Scott with a theme for The Fortunes of Nigel. Throughout the novel, irony confuses and misleads audiences; it is a form of rhetorical tyranny that allows its practitioners to insult, deceive, and manipulate. Yet there is a doubleness to this critique of irony: the novel includes elements characteristic of Scott’s other works, including a heavily veiled prologue and other meta-fictional material, which raises the question of how these aesthetic techniques differ from the harsh personal irony depicted in the novel. Ultimately, Scott associates certain types of ironic detachment with broader personal and social shortcomings and warns that excessive irony threatens the national unity central to his novelistic project.