Sir Walter Scott's artistic skill in the expression of historical facts and literary fiction in his historical novels

Sir Walter Scott is considered to be a founder of historical novel. He was influenced by the Scottish countryside, folklore and history as well as the literature that he was a profound lover of. His interests have also been reflected in his literary work. Scott became a famous writer of the English Romanticism. The essential part of his work is constituted by historical novels, a genre that he introduced for the first time. In his novels, he described the glorious history of England, Europe and his hometown, Scotland. There are various views about expressing historical facts and literary fiction in his novels among literary critics.

In essence Scott’s novel is seen as the result of a new historical consciousness that had emerged in the nineteenth century; it is as much an attempt to connect with the past as it is an account of it. In Lukacs words:

“What matters therefore in the historical novel is not the retelling of great historical events, but the poetic awakening of the people who figured in those events. What a matter is that we should re-experience the social and human motives which led men to think, feel and act just as they did in historical reality.”[3]

Furthermore, he made history romantic, and to those who feel history to be dull, he makes it exciting. Many authors have written histories more accurate in detail and with more attention to chronology; some have written romances more tender and ethereal, but no one combines history and romance and makes them both more lovely and believable.

Scott's formula for the historical novel was an unmistakable innovation which became a pattern for those who followed him. His story is pure fiction, his hero is imaginary. For example, it is Ivanhoe who is the hero, not Richard Coeur de Lion; the setting is as authentic as possible, and the events of history are quite accurate. As Henry Beers says, "He possessed the true enchanter's wand, the historic imagination. With this in his hand he raised the dead past to life, made it once more conceivable, made it even actual."[1] In his historical romances in general, and in Ivanhoe in particular, Scott captured the spirit of the age; he imitated the speech, the rude humor, the customs, and reconstructed a past age until it became a living present. He did not go deep into the cause of a historical event, just as he did not go deep into spiritualities, or men's thoughts, but he described in vivid detail and told a whopping good story. More particularly in Ivanhoe he was not always accurate, but he did more for the medieval era historically than almost anyone else to make it a part of the body of knowledge:

“….and two monks of his own order, of inferior station, rode together in the rear, laughing and conversing with each other, without taking much notice of the other members of the cavalcade. When the Prior had ceased what he meant as a conciliatory harangue, his companion said briefly and emphatically, “I speak ever French, the language of King Richard and his nobles; but I understand English sufficiently to communicate with the natives of the country.”[2]

It is with the description of battles and the external aspects of knighthood, the outlaw’s bands, and the Norman-Saxon conflict that Scott is especially interesting. He is never satirical and only mildly ironic, but he has a verve for color and action that is his specialty. Only at times, when he interrupts his story to add extraneous material, is the reader led away from the action. Therefore, some historical irrelevant facts are observed in this novel. A Norman historian Fleishmen gave a clear commentary for these historical irrelevant facts in “Ivanhoe”:

“No Englishman in the twelfth century called himself a Saxon, or was called a Saxon by anybody except a Scot or a Briton.” But, as John Buchan has wisely remarked, such things matter little in romance, which is a revolt against the despotism of facts.” [4]

Sir Walter Scott’s most distinguished novel Kenilworth is apparently set in 1575 and centers on the secret marriage of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and Amy Robsart, daughter of Sir Hugh Robsart. The tragic series of events begins when Amy flees her father and her betrothed Tressilian to marry the Earl. Amy passionately loves her husband and the Earl loves her in return, but he is driven by ambition. He is courting the favour of Queen Elizabeth I and only by keeping his marriage to Amy secret can he hopes to rise to the height of power that he desires. At the end of the book, the queen finally discovers the truth to the shame of the Earl. But the disclosure comes too late, for Amy is murdered by the Earl's even more ambitious steward Varney.

The title of the novel Kenilworth refers to Dudley's Castle in Kenilworth, Warwickshire. The novel opens, however, at Cumnor Place, near Abingdon in Berkshire (now Oxford shire). Kenilworth is a historical novel in which Scott has taken a lot of liberties with factual events. Scott has picked up from the historical sources, and made use of the accumulated facts for his literary advantage. Baker maintains that:

“Scott was always very sparing in his drafts upon actual history. Deliberately or involuntarily, he avoided the great episodes which are history in the making, or kept on the outskirts.”[1]

Much of the novel gives a fair depiction of the Elizabethan court although the circumstances of Amy Robsart’s death from a fall are greatly altered and also many other events are a product of Scott's imagination. The death of Amy Robsart had been the subject of speculation for more than 200 years, and in 1810 Cumnor Place was pulled down, it was said, solely in order to lay her ghost to rest.

In conclusion, the novel of Scott represents the triumph of Romanticism in the imaginative re-creation of the past, associated with all the diverse emotions which the tragic or comic drama of life can awaken. Though Scott made certain deviations from the facts of history by coloring them with his romantic imagination, yet he did not disregard the sanctity of history. He added the air of romance to the historical facts in the splendid reconstruction of the past.