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Waverly Analysis

Sir Walter Scott

Places Discussed

Tully-Veolan

Tully-Veolan (TUHL-ee vee-OHL-uhn). Ancient Scottish manor house and estate in Perthshire north of Edinburgh which is the home of the Bradwardines. Scott used a number of real Scottish houses as the basis for his description of Tully-Veolan. This manor house is of central importance throughout Waverley. The house is Edward Waverley’s first real introduction to Scotland, and it is a romantic and enchanting place that appeals strongly to his naïvely romantic temperament.

Tully-Veolan is eventually revealed as a very complex place and as a virtual symbol of Scotland itself. It has strong associations with poetry, romance, history, sentimental Jacobitism, and beauty but is also a place in which madness, weakness, violence, provincialism, and an ineffectual and feudal nostalgia exist. Tully-Veolan’s virtual identification with Scotland as a whole is further evident when, after the crushing defeat of the Scottish Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden, it is the desolation of Tully-Veolan that Scott describes and Waverley sees. When Tully-Veolan is rebuilt and returned to Baron Bradwardine by the English colonel Talbut, Scott is symbolically pointing out the value and importance of the union of Scotland and England, as opposed to the violent destructiveness of the Jacobite uprising.

Waverley-Honour

Waverley-Honour. English estate of the Waverley family at which Edward Waverley is reared. Early in the novel, Waverley-Honour symbolizes Waverley’s rather dubious but influential upbringing in which the chivalric romances in the Waverley-Honour library and his uncle and aunt’s nostalgic Jacobitism play major roles. At Waverley-Honour, Waverley is given an education that prepares him to be seduced by the romance and...

(The entire section is 736 words.)

Bibliography

(Critical Guide to Settings and Places in Literature)

Daiches, David. “Scott’s Achievement as a Novelist.” In Literary Essays. Edinburgh, Scotland: Oliver & Boyd, 1956. Argues that Scott’s achievements as a novelist, overlooked in the twentieth century, make Waverley and his other novels worth reading.

Davie, Donald. The Heyday of Sir Walter Scott. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961. Considers some of the factors contributing to the enormous popularity of Scott’s novels in the nineteenth century.

Hillhouse, James Theodore. The Waverley Novels and Their Critics. New York: Octagon Books, 1968. Contains critical reviews of Scott’s novels.

Pearson, Hesketh. Walter Scott: His Life and Personality. New York: Harper, 1954. Presents the novels of Scott as a reflection of himself, his family, and his culture.

Scott, Sir Walter. Waverley: Or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. Edited by Claire Lamont. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Contains an excellent introduction to the historical and narrative background of Waverley, as well as Scott’s notes and prefaces to the novel.

Welsh, Alexander. The Hero of the Waverley Novels. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1963. An interpretation of Scott’s hero, whose behavior is determined by class and who is acted upon by outside forces.

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