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Sir Walter Scott, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland
in 1771. He was educated at Edinburgh High School and
studied law at the University. He was apprenticed to
his father and called to the bar in 1792. In 1765 the
work Reliques of Ancient English Poetry by Thomas Percy
on the ballads of England had come out and strongly influenced
Scott's interest in ballads and old Border tales (i.e.
Folktales).
Scott devoted much of his leisure time to the exploration
of the border country and its oral literature. In 1797,
he published The Chase and William and Helen, a translation
of Bürger's "Der wilde Jäger," followed
by several other translations over the next couple of
years. From 1802-03 Scott published a collection of the
Border tales and ballads he loved so much in three volumes
called Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and in 1805
his first original work The Lay of the Last Minstrel
appeared, a romantic poem.
Scott continued to write throughout his life and many
of his works has been a very influential novelist for
the authors that followed him, like Hans Christian Andersen.
Scott's novels, like Waverly, Guy Mannering, and Ivanhoe
and his poems, like The Lady of the Lake, were widely
read throughout the nineteenth century and are still
read today.
There are many similarities between Scott and Andersen,
not least of which is their choice of literary inspiration,
both used folklore and folk tradition as a starting point
for their works. In 1826, the firm to which Scott belonged,
James Ballantyne & Co, found itself liable for a
debt of £114,000. He paid the entire debt, but
the strenuous efforts to pay off his creditors is accredited
for having shortened his life and in 1832 Scott died.
S. Mellor |
