Ivanhoe by Walter Scott

References: The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. 3rd Edition. Edited by: Dominic Head, University of Nottingham.

Andrew Maunder. Encyclopedia of Literary Romanticism. Publisher: Facts on File, 2010. P.205-206 (Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott - Melissa Ann West) We're not exaggerating when we say that author Sir Walter Scott was the one of the most preeminent writers of his day. Everybody read and commented on his books, including Victor Hugo and Mark Twain. He basically invented the genre of the historical novel. His influence on fiction of the 19th century is impossible to overestimate. Ivanhoe was the fifth of Sir Walter Scotts Waverley novels, a series of historical novels that dealt with the major themes of social progression and religious or cultural tolerance. Ivanhoe is a classic novel that combines history with fiction to create a truly engaging tale of chivalry and oppression. The title is derived from an old rhyme which records the names of three manors forfeited by a nobleman for striking the Black Prince with his tennis racket. "Tring, Wing, and Ivanhoe" were the three estates. Scott chose "Ivanhoe" for two reasons: it has an ancient English sound and it gives no indication of the subject matter of the story. Ivanhoe occurs in twelfth century England during the reign of King Richard the Lion-Hearted, approximately one hundred years after the Normans seize control of England, subjugating the Saxon natives. It is a dark time for England. Four generations after the Norman conquest of the island, the tensions between Saxons and Normans are at a peak; the two peoples even refuse to speak one another's languages. King Richard is in an Austrian prison after having been captured on his way home from the Crusades; his avaricious brother, Prince John, sits on the throne, and under his reign the Norman nobles have begun routinely abusing their power. These practices have enraged the Saxon nobility, particularly the fiery Cedric of Rotherwood. Cedric is so loyal to the Saxon cause that he has disinherited his son Ivanhoe for following King Richard to war. Additionally, Ivanhoe fell in love with Cedric's high-born ward Rowena, whom Cedric intends to marry to Athelstane, a descendent of a long-dead Saxon king. Cedric hopes that the union will reawaken the Saxon royal line. Set during the Crusades, Ivanhoe is a mythical story of Middle Ages chivalry, maidens in distress, and romance against all odds. The characters range from the lofty Prince John to the humble servant Wamba, portraying Christians and Jews alike in a moral light. This historical novel was seen as such a soulmoving rendition of the romanticized medieval age that most of Scotts contemporaries credited him with initiating the medieval revival that swept England during the Romantic period. The story itself revolves around the life of Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, son of the Saxon Cedric of Rothwood, and his love of two women, the Lady Rowena and the Jewess Rebecca. Scott uses both real and made-up places to create the world of Ivanhoe. The general setting of South Yorkshire is real, and the cities of Sheffield, Doncaster, and York are still in England today. By tying the adventures of Ivanhoe to real places, Scott makes them more believable. Torquilstone, Rotherwood (Cedric's hall), and Templestowe (the Knight Templar community) are all Scott's inventions. Ivanhoe is obviously not supposed to be a documentary or a strictly realistic portrayal of the English Middle Ages. There is a lot of fantasy mixed in, what with all the jousts, tournaments, and heroic outlaws. Scott is trying to tell an exciting story, and he makes up imposing Norman castles and Saxon halls to provide good backdrops to these adventures. By mixing fact and fiction, Scott keeps Ivanhoe suspenseful. The real-life people and places in the novel anchor these events in English history, while the invented settings and characters let the readers know that Scott is departing from the historical record. As far as Ivanhoe's tale goes, all bets are off anything could happen to him, because he is a purely fictional character. Although Ivanhoe's setting is loosely based on historical reality, the made-up elements keep it unpredictable. Epigraphs are like little appetizers to the great entre of a story. They illuminate important aspects of the story, and they get us headed in the right direction. Scott attaches two lines of poetry to the beginning of Ivanhoe. The only thing he tells us about these lines is that they are written by "Prior." While there are lots of priors in Ivanhoe this particular Prior is an 18th century poet named Matthew Prior. These lines are from a poem called "The Thief and the Cordelier." Quotes at the Beginning of Each Chapter -we should note that Scott's love of epigraphs does not end with the front page of Ivanhoe. He also includes a quote at the beginning of every chapter. It's also worth pointing out that some of Scott's "quotes" are really his own invented poems or lines of dialogue. Actually, quite a lot of them are see Chapters 18, 20, 26, 28, 30, 32, 35-37, and 42. Scott loves blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Mixing up fact and made-up material is a trademark of historical fiction like Ivanhoe.

Theme of Patriotism Usually we think of patriotism as a positive thing: it's healthy to be proud of your people and nation. But patriotism in this novel often comes across as negative and intolerant. Cedric and Ulrica loathe all Normans. (To be fair, we can see why: they have seen terrible violence in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest.) This strong sense of Saxon pride and anti-Norman hatred leads Cedric to disinherit his son and Ulrica to lose her mind with bitterness, which are obviously bad things, right? Keep in mind that Scott is writing at a time of strong resentment between France and England. Ivanhoe was published in 1819, just a few years after the Napoleonic Wars, in which England finally kicked France's butt at the Battle of Waterloo. Against this historical backdrop, the struggle in Ivanhoe between the snobby, domineering Normans (French) and the plucky, honest English guys (the Saxons and the outlaws of Sherwood) takes on a whole new pro-English meaning. But Ivanhoe is not a simple tale of England-versus-France. After all, that great king of England, King Richard I, is himself a Norman, and the book clearly disapproves of Cedric's knee-jerk anti-Norman feelings. Indeed, there are some real meditations on what it even means to be English. It's not like the Saxons were the first people in England. What about the Celts the Irish and the Picts and the Welsh? What happened to them once the Saxons came sailing over to the British Isles? At the end of Ivanhoe, the narrator admits that the differences that seem so sharp at the beginning of the novel between Saxon and Norman totally break down by the time we get to the 14th century. Historically, this whole Saxon-versus-Norman problem disappears, and everyone just starts speaking the same mixed language and basically getting along. Which seems good to us. What's the point of either Norman or Saxon patriotism if the only thing it does is encourage people to fight each other? Foreignness and 'The Other' There are lots of novels out there that pick on one group as evil or wrong they're 'Other,' or different from 'us.' And there are plenty of characters in Ivanhoe who try to treat Isaac and Rebecca as Other, less than human, because they are Jewish. Not only does Scott portray this anti-Jewish prejudice, but he also tries to imagine how being treated as Other would affect the psychologies of his Jewish characters. For example, Isaac is so used to being abused by Christians that he always assumes they are out to get him. (Sadly for Isaac, he's often right.) While Rebecca worries less than her father, she also exhibits humility toward Christian ladies like Rowena. Life has taught her to expect prejudice from the people around her, and she bears it patiently when it comes her way. Isaac and Rebecca's humility is at least partly a symptom of how badly they have been scarred by anti-Jewish hatred. Family It's not the memories of fighting in the Middle East that cause Ivanhoe most of his heartache; it's his struggles with his dad. The fact that he chooses to fight in the tournament at Ashby under the name "theDisinherited Knight" is proof of how important this is to him. In fact, for a novel that claims to be about big historical issues, a surprising amount of the plot revolves around personal family problems. Rowena wants to marry Ivanhoe, but Cedric (her guardian) engages her to Athelstane. Cedric blames Ulrica for living on after the deaths of her father and seven brothers, even if it means she can help out the Saxons at Torquilstone. And Richard I (the king of England, for Pete's sake!) has to step in to make things right between Ivanhoe and Cedric. This focus on individual relationships between characters makes the larger historical events operating in the background feel more personal and significant. Principles Ivanhoe may appear to be a straightforward story of swords, knights, and drama (you know, all that cool medieval stuff), but there are multiple characters, both good and bad, with a very strong commitment to the rules, even if we don't always agree with those rules. Look at Lucas Beaumanoir. He is a complete meanie, but he also insists that the Knights Templar practice what they preach, that they stick close to the vows of their order. Beaumanoir may be a bigot and a jerk, but man, he walks the walk. Speaking of people with principle, what about Rebecca? Her greatest virtue is her dedication to principle: it's the strength of her beliefs that keeps her safe from Brian de BoisGuilbert's temptations. We have principled characters on opposite sides of the good/evil divide: Beaumanoir is one of the book's worst villains and Rebecca is (in our humble opinion) the novel's best character. According toIvanhoe, loyalty to principle doesn't necessarily make you a good person in and of itself. If you are dedicated to a moral code that is fundamentally unjust, then you will also be unjust, no matter how principled you may think you are.

Identity One big question kept popping into our heads as we were readingIvanhoe: what's with all the disguises? You've got Ivanhoe dressed as the Disinherited Knight; King Richard I as "the Black Sluggard"; Robin Hood as, well, all kinds of people; De Bracy as a forest outlaw heck, Cedric and Wamba even share a monk costume. That's a lot of disguises for one fairly straightforward plot. Obviously these disguises raise the suspense of the book. Even if we suspect pretty early on that the Black Knight is King Richard, it's still exciting to see that moment of revelation when De Bracy recognizes the leader he has betrayed after the battle at Torquilstone. Yet there are so many disguises in this book that at some point it stops being a surprise when someone throws off his hood or hat and says, here I am! We get used to the idea that nobody is what he seems in this novel. And that seems to be why disguise is important to Ivanhoe. After all, this book is deeply concerned with identity national, cultural, religious, honor, family, all of that important stuff. However, if identity is something you can hide or change just by putting on new clothes or a hat, how important is it really? What does identity even mean in Ivanhoe? Who seems to have the strongest sense of identity in the book, and how does this character show it? Justice and Judgment We have three very different judges in Ivanhoe. First (and least important), Ivanhoe gets to decide who is the prettiest girl at the Ashby-de-la-Zouche tournament. He's like a beauty pageant judge. He is clearly biased, since he goes straight for his childhood sweetheart, Rowena. Speaking of bias in judgment, we also have Lucas Beaumanoir, the complete tool who tries to use his authority as head of the Knights Templar to condemn Rebecca to death for witchcraft a totally bogus accusation. Beaumanoir is not at all objective as a judge. He has already decided that Rebecca is guilty before the trial, but he still insists on going through the motions just to pretend that her conviction is fair and just. If it weren't for Bois-Guilbert's weird, sudden stroke on the battlefield during Rebecca's trial by combat, she would literally be toast. Last but not least we have Robin Hood, with his very own outlaw kingdom in the forests of Sherwood. As the leader of his band of thieves, Robin Hood gets to decide who's right whenever his men disagree. In a sense, even though Robin Hood is literally an outlaw, he is still the best example of a judge that we get in the whole book. He definitely has his own biases, but he tries his best to be fair-minded which is more than we can say for Lucas Beaumanoir. Duty We all have things we have to do, whether we want to or not. When Bois-Guilbert loses the tournament match to Ivanhoe, we're pretty sure he doesn't want to hand over his armor and horse to this Saxon upstart but he does it anyway, because those are the rules of being a knight. Likewise, when Prior Aymer and BoisGuilbert arrive at Cedric's hall at Rotherwood, Cedric doesn't want to share his home with two Norman bullies but he has to, because it's his duty as a lord and a host to be hospitable. These are both examples of clear duties that these guys carry out no matter how they may feel about them personally. What if it's unclear where your duty lies, though? What about Ivanhoe, conflicted over his duty to his father and his duty to his king? Or Athelstane, torn between his duty as a subject of King Richard and his duty to his Saxon allies as a descendant of the Saxon royal family? And how about all those duties that people in this book just ignore, like Prince John's duty to his brother or King Richard's duty to his people? Duty is a powerful theme in the book because knights are supposed to care about it, but there's a huge difference between the ideal and the reality of duty in this novel. Society and Class We've gone on and on about the cultural conflicts in Ivanhoe. No one seems to get along, from the Saxons and the Normans to the Christians and the Jews. But let's not forget that even within these groups there are a lot of class problems. Cedric literally owns Gurth, who wears an iron collar around his neck as a symbol of his servitude. And one reason that De Bracy wants to marry Rowena is so he can control her lands and become rich and powerful himself. Clearly money and power are major issues for these characters, above and beyond their ethnic and cultural identities.