Walter Scott and the Limits of Language / / Alison Lumsden.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Edinburgh University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2013-2000
• VerfasserIn: Lumsden, Alison,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2010
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (256 p.)

Scott's startlingly contemporary approach to theories of language and the creative impact of this on his work are explored in this new study. Alison Lumsden examines the linguistic diversity and creative playfulness of Scott's fiction and suggests that an evolving scepticism towards the communicative capacities of language runs throughout his writing. Lumsden re-examines this scepticism in relation to Scottish Enlightenment thought and recent developments in theories of the novel. Structured chronologically, the book covers Scott's output from his early narrative poems until the late, and only recently published, Reliquiae TrotcosiensesKey FeaturesGrounded in the scholarship of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley NovelsCovers the well-known as well as often neglected poetry and late fictionDemonstrates Scott's pivotal role in the development of the novel formProvides a thoroughly modern approach to Scott

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations and Shortened Forms of Reference -- Introduction: The ‘Poverty’ of Words -- 1. ‘Living in a World of Death’: Scott’s Narrative Poems -- 2. Speaking my Language: Waverley, Guy Mannering and The Antiquary -- 3. ‘Dying Words and Last Confessions’: The Heart of Mid-Lothian -- 4. Lost in Translation: Ivanhoe, The Fortunes of Nigel and Peveril of the Peak -- 5. ‘Narrative Continued’: Redgauntlet and Chronicles of the Canongate -- 6. Last Words: Count Robert of Paris, Reliquiae Trotcosienses and Castle Dangerous -- Afterword -- Bibliography -- Index