The construction and expression of Scottish patriotism in the works of Walter Scott

The thesis analyses the nature and significance of patriotism in the poetry, fiction and political and historical writings of Walter Scott. It begins with a survey of the "problem" of Scottish patriotism and Scott's relation to it. From his own age to the present day, Scott has generally been seen as a great Scottish patriot, but it has not often been clear what is meant by this description, since the idea of Scottish patriotism has, politically and culturally, been far from simple in the context of post-Union Britain. In the 20th Century nationalist and left-wing oriented criticism of Scott has further complicated the issue, and indeed though most modern literary studies of the Waverley Novels have identified various kinds of dualism, these have never been fully explained within a context of patriotism. The thesis contends that the need to find an acceptable form of patriotic expression was the fundamental motivation and impetus in most of Scott's work. The historical context of this claim is then described: from early historical works though to the social philosophising of the leading minds of the 18th-Century Enlightenment, the relationship between Scotland and Britain was of great importance; repeatedly Scottish writers developed different methods of allowing these two competing identifications to co-exist. It was Scott's deliberate and careful life-work to perfect the articulation of a symbiotic relationship between Scottish and British patriotisms, first through his poetical romances, then through historical fiction; finally he put his scheme to a political test in the episode of the Malachi Malagrowther letters of 1826. The bulk of the thesis traces this development, drawing evidence from the full range of Scott's writings. The thesis argues that Scott's scheme required him to interpret Scottish history as belonging essentially to the past, culminating in the 18th Century with the Union and the 'Forty-five. This last also required him to promote Highlanders and Jacobites as the most unadulterated representatives of Scottish cultural expression. At the same time, through all his work a clear pattern is discernible in which Scott created for himself a role as bard, story-teller and historian of the Scottish nation: in this role he provided Scotsmen of his own and later generations with an ideological system designed to accommodate their sense of Scottish identity within the wider context of the British Empire. Only in the present century, as the Scottish-British political and cultural relationship has altered, has that system become less efficient, and it is in the light of these changes that the subtleties and complexities of Scott's patriotic achievement can best be seen