Subversive Scott

For the last fifty years or so the standard critical view of Sir Walter Scott's fiction has been that, while paying full tribute to Scotland's heroic, ancient independence and romantic Jacobite past, his Scottish "Waverley Novels" ultimately present Scotland's future as nonetheless belonging within the peace, prosperity and progress of the United Kingdom and the British Empire. Julian Meldon D'Arcy's "Subversive Scott" radically revises this conventional evaluation of Scott's work and reveals that embedded in the "Waverley Novels" narratives are dissonant discourses and discreet subtexts which inspire far more subversive readings than hitherto perceived. Indeed, D'Arcy argues, there is considerable evidence in Scott's work to corroborate a claim that, despite his apparently politically correct fiction and lifestyle, his "Waverley Novels" contain undetected and underrated manifestations of Scottish nationalism which not only invoke sharp criticism of both the Union and English imperial policy, but also reveal his passionate concern, as a true Scotsman, with the issues of Scotland's national identity, dignity, and independence. Given the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, and Scotland's resurgent sense of political identity and relevance, D'Arcy's re-evaluation of the "Waverley Novels" is thus a fresh, timely and stimulating contribution to the study of Sir Walter Scott's fiction and politics.