Intermediate writers

Walter Scott's literary work was a link between romantic and realistic literature, even chronologically. And by his political and social views he was between Byron, Shelley and the L а к e r s. He sympathized with common people and justified people's desire for liberty. But he did not share any revolutionary views and throughout his life remained a royalist, believing that monarchy was the best social order. Walter Scott was a Scotsman by origin and was interested in Scottish history and folklore. He collected and published Scottish popular ballads under the title "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border" ("Песни шотландской границы"), "The Eve of St. John; a Border Ballad" ("Замок Смальгольм, или Иванов вечер"), "The Lady ofthe Lake" ("Дева озера"), "The Song of the Last Minstrel" ("Песнь последнего менестреля"), etc.

Scott's poems were highly appreciated and popular, but the author did not sign them, as well as the novels later. Scott gave up writing poetry (highly because of Byron's rising fame) and turned to novel writing (wrote more than 30 novels in total). His first novel (as well as 19 left novels) was published unanimously. The first novel was called "Waverley; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since" ("Веверлей, или 60 лет спустя") (1827). The other 19 novels were signed "The author of "Waverley"". And only his 21^st novel had his name. They say he might have several reasons for not signing the works:

1) he was a co-owner of the publishing house which he himself dealt with;

2) writing novels was not very popular and he could have been afraid of a kind of failure;

3) Scott had a desire to mystify the public (and at that time the "anonymous" author was called "the Wizard (волшебник) ofthe North").

All the works by Walter Scott were highly appreciated. One of his friends said that when Scott was writing poems everybody loved and was interested in poetry. But as he gave up it and started novel writing everybody began to read and praise novels.

All his novels can be divided into 4 groups (there were 29 novels if we regard different series of 1 chronicle as a whole (like "The Betrothed" ("Обручённый временем"), "The Tal isman" ("Талисман") which belong to "Tales ofCrusades"):

1) 15 novels dedicated to Scottish history and dealing with their struggle for liberation
from England:

— "Waverley";

-- "Rob Roy" (the key novel);

—"The Black Dwarf" ("Чёрный карлик");

—"Guy Mannering; or, the Astrologer" ("Гай Маннеринг, или астролог"), etc.

2) 8 novels dedicated to English history:

— "Ivanhoe: a Romance" ("Айвенго"); ~ "The Monastery" ("Монастырь");

-- "The Abbot" ("Аббат");

~ "Woodstock" ("Вудсток"), etc.

3) 5 novels dedicated to Continental history:

-- "Quentin Durward" ("Квентин Дорвард, или Шотландец при дворе Людовика XI") -the novel deals with the times of struggle between monarchy and townspeople, church and feudals;

~ "The Talisman", etc.

4) the only novel dedicated to Scott's contemporary times:

— "St. Ronan's Well" ("Сен-Ронанские воды").

Walter Scott's greatest contribution to English and world literature is that he introduced a new genre - the genre of the historical novel. After him even social novels acquired the features of the historism, that is, the writers would show life in development.

Scott's novels also reflected the most crucial and cardinal moments of the national history, showing the main political and social forces of the time. Like Shakespeare before him Scott stressed the idea that

historical processes always involve popular (народные) masses. He showed the progress of history through the destinies of people: his protagonists were not kings (though they were always present in his novels), but people either common or noble men of the lower rank who often found themselves in the middle of some political struggle.

Scott's mastery as a historian was also unsurpassed: even now those who study history, turn to his works for information about the manners, habits, clothing, weapons, architecture of this or that time described in Scott's books. Walter Scott was a real researcher and scholar.

Walter Scott should also be looked upon as a link between the Enlightenment novel and the novel of the new period, that of the 19* century or in other words - the Victorian novel.