Waverley; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since, Sir Walter Scott - Robert C. Gordon (essay date 1969)
Robert C. Gordon (essay date 1969)
SOURCE: Gordon, Robert C. “Waverley.” In Under Which King? A Study of the Scottish Waverley Novels, pp. 11-25. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1969.
[In the following excerpt, Gordon evaluates Waverley as a historical/political novel, focusing on its Jacobite theme and Scott's presentation of character.]
“… the contest between the loyalists and their opponents can never be obsolete …”
—Coleridge
The incorporating Union that brought England and Scotland under one government in 1707 was, paradoxically, both a typical example of eighteenth-century political jobbery and a gesture of political faith—a premature ratification of things hoped for, if not seen.1 It could only acquire validity when Scotland began to profit as a partner in British commercial, political, and intellectual life. Otherwise Scotland risked becoming what Scott...
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