Book details

Book description

A bestselling author in his own time and long after, Sir Walter Scott was not only a writer of thrilling tales of romance and adventure but also an insightful historical thinker and literary craftsman. Over the last two decades, scholars have come to see him as an important figure in Romantic-period literature, Scottish literature and the development of the historical novel.

Walter Scott and Contemporary Theory builds on this renewed appreciation of Scott's importance by viewing his most significant novels - from Waverley and Rob Roy to Ivanhoe, Redgauntlet, and beyond - through the lens of contemporary critical theory. By juxtaposing pairings of Scott's early and later novels with major contemporary theoretical concepts and the work of such thinkers as Alain Badiou, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida and Slavoj  i ek, this book uses theory to illuminate the complexities of Scott's fictions, while simultaneously using Scott's fictions to explain and explore the state of contemporary theory. In Walter Scott and Contemporary Theory Gottlieb adopts the possibilities offered by an array of theoretical approaches to explore the surprising contemporaneity and richness of Scott s fiction. In turn he also examines the potential of these theoretical positions by setting them against the issues inherent in historical fiction. The result is a study that both expands our understanding of Scott and asks us to reconsider what contemporary theory may offer us more generally as readers. Evan Gottlieb is Associate Professor of English at Oregon State University, USA.