Sir Walter Scott: Folklore and fiction

This dissertation applies performance theory and principles of Bakhtinian dialogism to examine the operation of folklore in the Scottish fiction of Sir Walter Scott. The investigative focus is the dialogic relationship between fiction and culture--specifically literary culture and folk culture--as they are mutually informed and energized in Scott\u27s novels. In three distinct novelistic phases Scott attempted with measurable success to forge and sustain a distinctive folklore-based Scottish cultural voice oppositional--yet not antagonistic--to the dominant English literary culture of his day. Throughout this program Scott variously enacts within and around his narratives traditional folklore performances and processes while dialogically contrasting and discriminating for his audience between authentic folklore and spurious folk-like lore. In this way, he comprehensively exploits the fertile fusion of romanticism and realism inherent in Scottish folk cultural expression, establishing in the process its artistic viability as a credible counterpart--or co-constituent--of purely literary art. Scott\u27s performance of folklore in his fictional program was thus a move toward a new, culturally harmonized British literature