Jul 13 - The Scott Monument (1841-44), Edinburgh
"Scotland never owed so much to one man." (Henry, Lord Cockburn)
- "Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh on Aug. 15, 1771. He had polio when young, and while recuperating at his grandfather's farm in the Scottish Borders he first heard old tales and ballads which influenced his later writing. ... He studied law at the University and became an advocate in 1792, married in 1797, and lived in the New Town. During the years 1801-1815 he wrote poetry (including 'The Lady of the Lake') and published collections of Scottish ballads. 'Waverley', the first of a series of novels, was produced anonymously in 1814, and he became known as 'The Great Unknown' until he publicly acknowledged his authorship in 1827. ... His writings have had enormous worldwide appeal, inspiring composers, influencing writers, and encouraging people to visit a Scotland which his work recreated. After his death, it was agreed that "a Public Memorial should be created in the metropolis of Scotland to the memory of Sir Walter Scott, on a scale worthy of his great name, and fitted to convey to future times an adequate testimony of the estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries." (a plaque)
This is understated I think. Waverley and his earlier novels were the first historical romances, and were so popular, and different, that they ushered in an age of historical romantic fiction. "He had a good deal to do with the predominance of narrative in subsequent English verse. Byron was directly indebted to him in the case of his narrative verse." www.bartleby.com/222/0120.html And Scott single-handedly gave Scotland its reputation as a land of legends and heroic chivalry, in particular the Highlands, that it's had ever since he was knighted in 1820. His sympathetic image of the Highlander is credited with generating support for the northern Scots at the time of the potato famine (the number of deaths in the Highlands were a small fraction of those of the Irish; their produce wasn't shipped out to England under armed guard as it was in Ireland) and at the time of their resistance to the Clearances and the abuse they suffered from their own clan chieftains in the mid-19th cent.
From the article in this link www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/16/walter-scott-edinbu...
"In terms of his effect on the reputation of his native Scotland, [writer and critic Stuart] Kelly said Scott "invented a great simulacrum of Scotland; he invented the image of the country". 18th-cent. accounts of the Highlands characterized them as "treacherous, poor, a hotbed of villains, and barren". Samuel Johnson's 'A Journey To The Western Islands of Scotland' (1775) was "an anthropological exercise to see what backwardness looked like". By contrast, post-Scott the Highlands were seen as "picturesque, romantic, loyal and a hive of industry and inventiveness," said Kelly. Scott's novels were the "fulcrum" around which Scotland's reputation turned: "The fact that we still have a national identity of any kind is down to Scott."" !!
- "Scott organized the visit to Edinburgh of George IV in 1822 – the first visit to Scotland by a royal who wasn't arriving at the head of an army since James I. The king wore a kilt and silk stockings, sparking off a rage for tartan that has lasted to this day." The clans didn't have their own distinct clan tartans before Scott.
- "Although he wrote some "hasty things" and some "mad things", Scott's books "incarnate a deeply humane vision of the world", said Kelly. "None of his lower-class characters is a caricature. To that extent, he makes Dickens seem regressive. He also creates some of the earliest sympathetic portraits of Jewish and Hindu characters. He should be celebrated as a cosmopolitan, enlightened and humane writer. His Toryism was so close to Fabianism you can't put a credit card between them.""
- Scott is also credited with the sudden popularity in the 1810s and 20s of all things medieval in England. [But didn't Gothic fiction play a part, which predates Scott by as early as 1764 with Walpole's medieval 'Castle of Otranto'? Ann Radcliffe's popular gothic romances were written in the 1790s. Scott was following a trend, although his works were based in real historical events.] ""He was key in making medievalism the centre of English experience", said Kelly. Without Scott, "there would probably have been a neo-classical Houses of Parliament rather than a neo-gothic Houses of Parliament". Scott, by way of novels such as Ivanhoe, popularized the notion of the centrality of the medieval period to the extent that its architecture was adopted as "the national style" when the new Palace of Westminster came to be built in 1835."
So it's fitting that his monument is as gothic in its style as possible.
Jul 13 - The Scott Monument (1841-44), Edinburgh
"Scotland never owed so much to one man." (Henry, Lord Cockburn)
- "Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh on Aug. 15, 1771. He had polio when young, and while recuperating at his grandfather's farm in the Scottish Borders he first heard old tales and ballads which influenced his later writing. ... He studied law at the University and became an advocate in 1792, married in 1797, and lived in the New Town. During the years 1801-1815 he wrote poetry (including 'The Lady of the Lake') and published collections of Scottish ballads. 'Waverley', the first of a series of novels, was produced anonymously in 1814, and he became known as 'The Great Unknown' until he publicly acknowledged his authorship in 1827. ... His writings have had enormous worldwide appeal, inspiring composers, influencing writers, and encouraging people to visit a Scotland which his work recreated. After his death, it was agreed that "a Public Memorial should be created in the metropolis of Scotland to the memory of Sir Walter Scott, on a scale worthy of his great name, and fitted to convey to future times an adequate testimony of the estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries." (a plaque)
This is understated I think. Waverley and his earlier novels were the first historical romances, and were so popular, and different, that they ushered in an age of historical romantic fiction. "He had a good deal to do with the predominance of narrative in subsequent English verse. Byron was directly indebted to him in the case of his narrative verse." www.bartleby.com/222/0120.html And Scott single-handedly gave Scotland its reputation as a land of legends and heroic chivalry, in particular the Highlands, that it's had ever since he was knighted in 1820. His sympathetic image of the Highlander is credited with generating support for the northern Scots at the time of the potato famine (the number of deaths in the Highlands were a small fraction of those of the Irish; their produce wasn't shipped out to England under armed guard as it was in Ireland) and at the time of their resistance to the Clearances and the abuse they suffered from their own clan chieftains in the mid-19th cent.
From the article in this link www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/16/walter-scott-edinbu...
"In terms of his effect on the reputation of his native Scotland, [writer and critic Stuart] Kelly said Scott "invented a great simulacrum of Scotland; he invented the image of the country". 18th-cent. accounts of the Highlands characterized them as "treacherous, poor, a hotbed of villains, and barren". Samuel Johnson's 'A Journey To The Western Islands of Scotland' (1775) was "an anthropological exercise to see what backwardness looked like". By contrast, post-Scott the Highlands were seen as "picturesque, romantic, loyal and a hive of industry and inventiveness," said Kelly. Scott's novels were the "fulcrum" around which Scotland's reputation turned: "The fact that we still have a national identity of any kind is down to Scott."" !!
- "Scott organized the visit to Edinburgh of George IV in 1822 – the first visit to Scotland by a royal who wasn't arriving at the head of an army since James I. The king wore a kilt and silk stockings, sparking off a rage for tartan that has lasted to this day." The clans didn't have their own distinct clan tartans before Scott.
- "Although he wrote some "hasty things" and some "mad things", Scott's books "incarnate a deeply humane vision of the world", said Kelly. "None of his lower-class characters is a caricature. To that extent, he makes Dickens seem regressive. He also creates some of the earliest sympathetic portraits of Jewish and Hindu characters. He should be celebrated as a cosmopolitan, enlightened and humane writer. His Toryism was so close to Fabianism you can't put a credit card between them.""
- Scott is also credited with the sudden popularity in the 1810s and 20s of all things medieval in England. [But didn't Gothic fiction play a part, which predates Scott by as early as 1764 with Walpole's medieval 'Castle of Otranto'? Ann Radcliffe's popular gothic romances were written in the 1790s. Scott was following a trend, although his works were based in real historical events.] ""He was key in making medievalism the centre of English experience", said Kelly. Without Scott, "there would probably have been a neo-classical Houses of Parliament rather than a neo-gothic Houses of Parliament". Scott, by way of novels such as Ivanhoe, popularized the notion of the centrality of the medieval period to the extent that its architecture was adopted as "the national style" when the new Palace of Westminster came to be built in 1835."
So it's fitting that his monument is as gothic in its style as possible.