Scott and Society [Paperback]

Provides a fresh study of elements of Scott's life, before using the findings to sketch an artistic development in his novels.This book has two main related purposes. The first is to provide a fresh and thoroughly documented study of elements of the background to Scotts life and art that have often been overlooked or taken for granted. The second is to use this background to sketch an artistic development in the novels.This book has two main related purposes. The first is to provide a fresh and thoroughly documented study of elements of the background to Scotts life and art that have often been overlooked or taken for granted. The second is to use this background to sketch an artistic development in the novels.This book has two main related purposes. The first is to provide a fresh and thoroughly documented study of elements of the background to Scott's life and art that have often been overlooked or taken for granted: his politics and his relation to the major intellectual currents of the age and to the Scottish social background. From this study, Scott emerges as a more understandable and less trivial politician and observer of his contemporary scene, both privately and in public. The second part of the book uses this background to sketch an artistic development in the novels. Dr McMaster shows how Scott's deepening response to what he saw as an ever more troubled world led him from the strict realism of his early works to a mature synthesis of realistic, poetic and symbolic modes.Introduction; Part I: 1. Waverley and Redgauntlet: definition of a critical problem; Part II: 2. Scott and the Enlightenment; 3. Some political topics; 4. Scottish society 17701832; 5. Queen Caroline and King Charles; Part III: 6 . Development; Appendix; Notes; Index.