Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott - Edgar Johnson (essay date 1970)
Edgar Johnson (essay date 1970)
SOURCE: "Chivalry, Church, and Crown," in Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, Vol. I, The Macmillan Company, 1970, pp. 736-58.
[In the following excerpt, Johnson claims that the romanticism of Ivanhoe is supplemented by a critical attention to the "worldly manifestations of feudalism. "]
Ivanhoe plunges back in time to an age over four hundred years earlier than Scott has previously dealt with, and shifts his scene from Scotland into the heart of England almost two hundred miles south of the Border. Consciously his aim was novelty of time and setting; perhaps, Scott thought, readers were getting tired of Scottish scenes and characters. But his mind—whether or not of set purpose—was still dwelling upon the themes of A Legend of Montrose. The Highland clan system exemplified a feudal organization of society lingering on in a moribund state among Scotland's remote...
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