Fiona Robertson: LEGITIMATE HISTORIES: SCOTT, GOTHIC, AND THE AUTHORITIES OF FICTION

Fiona Robertson

LEGITIMATE HISTORIES:
SCOTT, GOTHIC, AND THE AUTHORITIES OF FICTION
(1994)

Reviewed by Patrick Killough

I. for barnesandnoble.com

Here is how your review will appear on the title page:

Reviewer:Patrick Killough (patrick@thekilloughs.com), a retired Foreign Service Officer, June 10, 2007

Reviewer's Rating of LEGITIMATE HISTORIES * * * * FOUR STARS

Title of this Review: Walter Scott writes Gothic Novels because that's the way his readers grapple with history

I told a dinner partner that I was reading Fiona Robertson's study of Sir Walter Scott, LEGITIMATE HISTORIES. His reaction to the title was immediate and visceral: 'Who decides what makes history legitimate or illegitimate?' The title meant something concrete, arrogant and provocative to my friend.

To me, by contrast, it meant initially nothing and later something more abstract. It was a title created by an academician making instant sense -- via its sub-title, SCOTT, GOTHIC, AND THE AUTHORITIES OF FICTION -- to only a handful of other Walter Scott specialists.

But, its arguably too obscure title aside, this is a fine, well written book for anyone with six or seven Walter Scott novels (of the 27 written) under his belt and who needs help unraveling complexities in Scott's texts. Fiona Robertson examines Gothic elements in Scott and rates them more highly than have most previous critics.

Professor Robertson defines her subject:

"Gothic is a type of fiction which invites readers' fears and anxieties in highly stylized mystery-tales, using a limited set of plots, settings and character-types, and including an element of history" (p. 70).

Key Gothic novels include the very first, THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO (1764) by Horace Walpole, FRANKENSTEIN (1818) by Mary Shelley and MELMOTH THE WANDERER (1820) by Charles Robert Maturin. A Gothic novel plunges readers vicariously into dank dungeons and crypts, where they pore over ancient manuscripts and codes, seek out hidden mysteries in chests and boxes, encounter ghosts and spirits and are generally frightened out of their wits. Eighteenth and 19th Century Gothic novels are grandsires of today's vampire tales by Anne Rice or Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI CODE.

During his lifetime (1771 -1832) Sir Walter Scott was praised either for turning his back on the Gothic he absorbed as a boy or for rising above Gothic in his 27 novels. Sir Walter was lauded for emphasizing truth, accuracy and sober realism. He was thought to downplay ghosts, explain away superstitions and promote wholesome, healthy attitudes in his readers.

Later critics, however, discovered more Gothic elements in Scott than they liked. Some of them admitted that he transcended the Gothic by making fun of it. Others wrote that when he was sick or tired, Sir Walter mechanically fell back on White Ladies and banshees and Gothic set situations and literary cliches because he could not think of anything better.

Professor Robertson makes the case that Walter Scott knew perfectly well what he was about whenever he dipped into his Gothic tool case. And he did it often. There are many, many voices in almost any Scott novel, starting with the author, then the narrator, then the discoverers of manuscripts which allegedly give raw materials for the plot, plus narrative frames, introductions, notes, etc. Scott made an implicit pact with his readers. Their preferred, recently acquired way to assimilate the past through fiction was through Gothic and when Walter Scott gave them Gothic, they knew he was only helping them see unfamiliar times and places through the Gothic lenses that they had been wearing for a long time and which they liked very much.

LEGITIMATE HISTORIES climaxes in analysis of two novels, REDGAUNTLET and WOODSTOCK. Recent critics think very highly of REDGAUNTLET, because they are big on meta-plots and REDGAUNTLET they see as 'writing about writing,' with its epistles and reflections on the relations between words and reality. Since they already like REDGAUNTLET for other reasons, those critics are predisposed to do justice to REDGAUNTLET's many Gothic and pre-Gothic (e.g. Miltonian) elements. By contrast, WOODSTOCK is not highly rated of late and it is a challenge to get at Scott's purpose in larding it with Gothic language and situations. To Fiona Robertson, Scott in WOODSTOCK is still experimenting with Gothic. It is a popular literary genre which -- when Scott uses it -- gives readers a sense that there is more to the author's sober moralizing about history and the undeserved Kingship of Charles II than he is letting on.

This is a very good book. I hope it is republished soon and that copies then become available for less than $142.40. -OOO-

Also recommended:

--Sir Walter Scott: REDGAUNTLET, WAVERLEY, PEVERIL OF THE PEAK, THE PIRATE, WOODSTOCK.
--James Buchan: CROWDED WITH GENIUS: THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT: EDINBURGH'S MOMENT OF THE MIND.
--G. K.Chesterton: TWELVE TYPES.
==-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-

II. for amazon.com

Reviewer's Rating of LEGITIMATE HISTORIES: * * * * FOUR STARS

Title of this review: Walter Scott teaches history through fiction, the way readers want it taught.

The book's title is LEGITIMATE HISTORIES: SCOTT, GOTHIC, AND THE AUTHORITIES OF FICTION. Once you get beyond that "just for scholars" title, you have a mighty good book in your hands.

The "Scott" of the subtitle is Sir Walter Scott (1771 - 1832), narrative poet, author of 27 novels and inventor of the historical novel genre. Like the historical novel, "Gothic" is a sub-genre, powerful in the youth and young manhood of Sir Walter. Author Fiona Robertson defines it thus:

"Authorities of Fiction" and "Legitimate Histories" are terms of art which shed light on each other's meanings throughout Dr Robertson's detailed study of Scott's techniques in such novels as REDGAUNTLET, THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL, THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, PEVERIL OF THE PEAK and others.

Walter Scott is enjoying a revival among scholars, largely because of his "meta-fiction" or "writing about writing." Post-Freudian and deconstructionist scholars are fascinated by the many narrative voices in Sir Walter, by his inviting readers to become active partners with him in the way they approach, decode and absorb his works. Scott builds "frames" around his romances and attributes plots (e.g. THE MONASTERY and THE ABBOT) to rediscovery of lost manuscripts or popular recollections of folk tales. Scott also editorializes, makes asides, experiments with novels based on letters, introduces discoverers of secrets and editors who argue with one another.

English novels before Scott did these things too, but for different reasons. Since 1764 Gothic novels such as THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO by Horace Walpole, FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley and MELMOTH THE WANDERER by Charles Robert Maturin, created a "terror" literature aimed at English Protestants. Their subjects were "taboo" (including, therefore, Roman Catholics, Continental Europe, the Orient) and their aim was to make their readers' hearts beat faster in fright. Gothic novels took ghosts seriously, subjected innocent people to the tortures of the Inquisition, were full of mysterious chests, portraits, corridors going nowhere, suspense and unspeakable anguish. Gothic writers also took pains to convince their readers that their tales had a basis in history, were "legitimate histories" and "authoritative."

Sir Walter Scott did all these things as well. He too told tales of the supernatural, of exhumations, of quests, of mystery, of evil Catholics, of monks, goblins and wizards. He was also a solid researcher of historical facts and wanted his readers to trust him as an expert -- initially despite his hidden identity.

His reasoning went something like this, according to Dr Robertson: my clan, the Scotts, have played a central role in Scottish history. I know my family very well. So trust me to be accurate on the history of Scotland. Or: I had some Quaker ancestors. You can therefore believe me when I tell you about Quakers (p. 152). After 1826 when it was officially revealed that "the Author of Waverley" was Sir Walter Scott, the novelist in his final Magnum Opus editions became more explicit in his guidelines for readers, subtly cajoling: I am a lawyer, so trust me when I write court scenes and legal processes. I am a historical researcher. Trust me to get the facts right.

One way to read Scott is to imagine him trying to teach history to British people who were not antiquarians, collectors of border ballads or scholars. For three generations they had learned what little history they knew through Gothic Romances.

They liked learning history that way. If they were going to learn more real history, it would be through brand new Gothic (or ostensibly Gothic) novels. So that is what Sir Walter gave them.

When he published a novel called CASTLE DANGEROUS, he was making a contract with English readers: here you will find my kind of Gothic novel. It will be as true to real history as fiction can be. Trust me. But you will be learning that history through the good old Gothic conventions you love so much. Trust me. There will be mystery. You will be frightened. You will be entertained. But you will also know more real history when you put my book down than when you picked it up. Trust me.

What histories did Walter Scott write and why did he write them the way he did? These themes and more make up the fascinating subject of Fiona Robertson's LEGITIMATE HISTORIES: SCOTT, GOTHIC, AND THE AUTHORITIES OF FICTION. -OOO-

Your tags: fiona robertson, sir walter scott, historical novel, gothic novel, charles maturin, mary shelley, horace walpole

=-=-=====-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

III. for epinions.com

Review Summary

TITLE OF THIS REVIEW: Why do writers of historical fiction want us to believe it is true?
Jun 11 '07

Author's Product Rating * * * * * FIVE STARS

Pros
Explains Gothic fiction and how Sir Walter Scott both uses and transcends its extravagances.

Cons
Written primarily for scholars and English majors. Therefore requiries careful first reading and then rereading.

The Bottom Line
This is a scholarly book that encourages me to reimagine its vision in my own unscholarly words. I also find that Robertson empowers me better to understand Sir Walter Scott.

Full Review

What was Sir Walter Scott trying to get across to readers of his 27 historical novels?

Arguably, one goal was to teach real history to relatively ignorant British readers who wanted entertainment, not history. Luckily, since 1764 when Horace Walpole's THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO filled bookstores, British readers had fallen wildly in love with Gothic novels which served up "history lite." There was a flood of them, including Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN and MELMOTH THE WANDERER by Charles Robert Maturin.

In LEGITIMATE HISTORIES: SCOTT, GOTHIC, AND THE AUTHORITIES OF FICTION, Dr Fiona Robertson defines Gothic writing this way:

Almost everything I know about Gothic fiction I learned from Robertson's LEGITIMATE HISTORIES. About half its text goes to Gothic and its classic writers and half goes to Sir Walter Scott and how he drew on Gothic while creating something radically different: the more factual "historical novel."

Dr Robertson tells us that true Gothic tales were relatively light on history. History was just a prop, a backdrop for the taboo, the mysterious and, above all, the terrifying. This was not true of the works of Sir Walter Scott. He was a trained collector of ballads and antiquities, a conscientious researcher and a man of law. He had solid credentials as a truth-teller.

Problem was that the first editions of most of his novels were published anonymously as by "The Author of Waverley," WAVERLEY being the name of his first novel (1814). Now how does an anonymous author inspire his readers to trust him? How can they be sure he is not slanting the truth for his own political, religious or other purposes?

By 1826 Scott was out in the open and had acknowledged his authorship. He soon issued his money-making Magnum Opus series of fresh editions with new prefaces and notes. He could now openly lay out his credentials as antiquarian, historical researcher, lawyer, dabbler in heraldry and reader of Gothic romances. And in some cases he actually chose to come clean and explain why he had created fictional pseudo-sources to make his stories feel true.

But even during the earlier time when still publishing as The Author of Waverley, Scott made a point of finding indirect ways to assert his credibility as an authority. He did it by building frames around his tales, by claiming that some romances were based on mysterious manuscripts, just as mysteriously acquired by local historians and then privately shared with publishers and scholars.

Post-Freudian, deconstructionist scholars, Fiona Robertson tells us, find absolutely fascinating the way Scott spins his novels, brings his readers in as collaborators in seeking for clues and suggests to them just how to read his books. He forms "contracts of expectations" (p. 62) with his readers, judging them to have an "imaginative responsibility" for working over and recasting in their own terms what he presents. Thus, if he titles a romance CASTLE DANGEROUS, his readers can legitimately expect a Gothic novel, or at least Walter Scott's more historically true kind of Gothic novel.

LEGITIMATE HISTORIES is about how history is presented as fiction and how writers then describe their fiction. This is the scholarly world of intertextuality, metatextuality ("relationship between a text and its commentary") and paratextuality ("relationship between a text and its early drafts, titles, epigraphs, illustrations and explanatory notes," (p. 118, n. 3). Scholars love Walter Scott for his meta-fiction, "a story about telling stories" (p. 254). That is why they single out for special praise REDGAUNTLET (1824) about an imaginary return to England in the 1760s of Bonnie Prince Charlie. In it one story leads to another. Letters bear some of the burden of the plot. And there are, to boot, Gothic false starts, imprisonments, nuns, lost inheritances and mysteries galore.

Christians are pleased that Saint Luke lays out his qualifications to make us believe that THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES is historically true. Believers are reassured when young Joseph Smith tells them that he was an eyewitness to key features in the story of the Golden Tablets or THE BOOK OF MORMON. Such authors are making truth claims and their asserted qualifications and sources are important props to their claims.

But writers of imaginative fiction are also often at pains to make us believe that the core of their imaginings touches something true.

Fiona Robertson has made at least one reader, me, wonder why writers of obvious fiction, and not just Sir Walter Scott, try so hard to make readers believe that their fictions are authentic, grounded in fact, are ways of seeing truth from a different slant. In the history of imaginative literature we have the Ossian tales initially promoted as pure history. Some Gothic novels were first published as factual, then admitted by their authors in later editions to be inventions. Sales immediately plummeted. Why? Whence the impulse to make readers believe that the untrue is true?

Claims to be authentic are not the same things as being authentic. What makes a critical intelligence sure that Joseph's Smith's religious histories are fact, not fiction? After all, troubled young Joseph came of age at a time when Gothic novels and Walter Scott were wildly popular in America. The claims which Smith and Luke make for authenticity are as prima facie debatable as those for many Gothic tales and historical novels. Whence comes the impulse to write what Fiona Robertson calls "Legitimate Histories?" Read her great book and find out!

Robertson's LEGITIMATE HISTORIES is a book that improves with every re-reading. If you already have or six Walter Scott novels under your belt, you will be in heaven when Fiona Robertson locates them and their conventions against the tapestry of Gothic tales. If you as yet know little or no Scott, you will now want to begin reading him, starting with IVANHOE, "the most influential novel of the nineteenth century"
(p. 6).

Scott's English Protestant readers demanded to be entertained and frightened by the Gothic: with its taboos, evil Catholics, puzzles, mysteries, monks, dark dungeons, the Inquisition, secret tribunals, lost inheritances, goblins and terror. To lift readers to higher insights, Scott obligingly delivered everything but the terror. -OOO-

Recommended:
Yes

http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/robertson_legitimatehistories.html