Editing Walter Scott (section)

==The poet==
[[File:Sir William Allan - Sir Walter Scott, 1771 - 1832. Novelist and poet - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|Sir Walter Scott, novelist and poet – painted by [[Sir William Allan]] ]]
Between 1805 and 1817 Scott produced five long, six-canto narrative poems, four shorter independently published poems, and many small metrical pieces. Scott was by far the most popular poet of the time until [[Lord Byron]] published the first two cantos of ''[[Childe Harold's Pilgrimage]]'' in 1812 and followed them up with his exotic oriental verse narratives.

''[[The Lay of the Last Minstrel]]'' (1805), in medieval romance form, grew out of Scott's plan to include a long original poem of his own in the second edition of the ''Minstrelsy'': it was to be "a sort of Romance of Border Chivalry & inchantment".<ref>''The Letters of Sir Walter Scott: 1787‒1807'', ed. [[H. J. C. Grierson]] (London, 1932), 166 (Scott to [[Anna Seward]], 30 November 1802).</ref> He owed the distinctive irregular accent in four-beat metre to [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Coleridge]]'s ''[[Christabel (poem)|Christabel]]'', which he had heard recited by [[John Stoddart]]. (It was not to be published until 1816.)<ref>[[#Johnson|Johnson]], p. 197.</ref> Scott was able to draw on his unrivalled familiarity with Border history and legend acquired from oral and written sources beginning in his childhood to present an energetic and highly coloured picture of 16th-century Scotland, which both captivated the general public and with its voluminous notes also addressed itself to the antiquarian student. The poem has a strong moral theme, as human pride is placed in the context of the last judgment with the introduction of a version of the "[[Dies irae]]" at the end. The work was an immediate success with almost all the reviewers and with readers in general, going through five editions in one year.<ref name=hewitt/> 
The most celebrated lines are the ones that open the final stanza: 
{{Blockquote|<poem>
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
  This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
  From wandering on a foreign strand!—
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell.</poem>}}

Three years after ''The Lay'' Scott published ''[[Marmion (poem)|Marmion]]'' (1808) telling a story of corrupt passions leading up as a disastrous climax to the [[Battle of Flodden]] in 1513. The main innovation involves prefacing each of the six cantos with an epistle from the author to a friend: [[William Stewart Rose]], The Rev. [[John Marriott (poet)|John Marriot]], [[William Erskine, Lord Kinneder|William Erskine]], [[James Skene]], [[George Ellis (poet)|George Ellis]], and [[Richard Heber]]: the epistles develop themes of moral positives and special delights imparted by art. In an unprecedented move, the publisher [[Archibald Constable]] purchased the copyright of the poem for a thousand guineas at the beginning of 1807, when only the first had been completed.<ref>Walter Scott, 2018. ''Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field'', ed. Ainsley McIntosh. Edinburgh. pp. 292‒93. {{ISBN|978-1717020321}}</ref> Constable's faith was justified by the sales: the three editions published in 1808 sold 8,000 copies. The verse of ''Marmion'' is less striking than that of ''The Lay'', with the epistles in iambic tetrameters and the narrative in tetrameters with frequent trimeters. The reception by the reviewers was less favourable than that accorded ''The Lay'': style and plot were both found faulty, the epistles did not link up with the narrative, there was too much antiquarian pedantry, and Marmion's character was immoral.<ref>J. H. Alexander, 1976. ''Two Studies in Romantic Reviewing'', Vol. 2. Salzburg. pp. 358‒369. {{ISBN|0773401296}}</ref> The most familiar lines in the poem sum up one of its main themes: "O what a tangled web we weave,/ When first we practice to deceive"<ref>Canto 6, stanza 17 (6.766‒67).</ref>

Scott's meteoric poetic career peaked with his third long narrative, ''The Lady of the Lake'' (1810), which sold 20,000 copies in the first year.<ref name=hewitt/> The reviewers were fairly favourable, finding the defects noted in ''Marmion'' largely absent.<ref>J. H. Alexander, 1976. ''Two Studies in Romantic Reviewing'', Vol. 2. Salzburg. pp. 369‒380. {{ISBN|0773401296}}</ref> In some ways it is more conventional than its predecessors: the narrative is entirely in iambic tetrameters and the story of the transparently disguised [[James V of Scotland|James V]] (King of Scots 1513‒42) predictable: Coleridge wrote to [[William Wordsworth|Wordsworth]]: 'The movement of the Poem... is between a sleeping Canter and a Marketwoman's trot – but it is endless – I seem never to have made any way – I never remember a narrative poem in which I felt the sense of Progress so languid."<ref>''Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Volume 3 1807‒1814'', ed. Earl Leslie Griggs. Oxford. 1959. p. 808 (early October 1810).</ref> But the metrical uniformity is relieved by frequent songs and the Perthshire Highland setting is presented as an enchanted landscape, which caused a phenomenal increase in the local tourist trade.<ref>''The Letters of Sir Walter Scott: 1808‒1811'', ed. H. J. C. Grierson. London. 1932. 419n.</ref> Moreover, the poem touches on a theme that was to be central to the Waverley Novels: the clash between neighbouring societies in different stages of development.<ref name=hewitt/>

The remaining two long narrative poems, ''[[Rokeby (poem)|Rokeby]]'' (1813), set in the [[Yorkshire]] estate of that name belonging to Scott's friend [[John Bacon Sawrey Morritt|J. B. S. Morritt]] during the [[English Civil War|Civil War]] period, and ''[[The Lord of the Isles]]'' (1815), set in early 14th-century Scotland and culminating in the [[Battle of Bannockburn]] in 1314. Both works had generally favourable receptions and sold well, but without rivalling the huge success of ''The Lady of the Lake''. Scott also produced four minor narrative or semi-narrative poems between 1811 and 1817: ''[[The Vision of Don Roderick]]'' (1811, celebrating Wellington's successes in the Peninsular Campaign, with profits donated to Portuguese war sufferers);<ref>''The Romantics Part III, S–Z'', No. 25, London: Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers, 2021.</ref> ''[[The Bridal of Triermain]]'' (published anonymously in 1813); ''[[The Field of Waterloo]]'' (1815); and ''[[Harold the Dauntless]]'' (published anonymously in 1817).

Throughout his creative life Scott was an active reviewer. Although himself a Tory he reviewed for ''[[Edinburgh Review|The Edinburgh Review]]'' between 1803 and 1806, but that journal's advocacy of peace with Napoleon led him to cancel his subscription in 1808. The following year, at the height of his poetic career, he was instrumental in establishing a Tory rival, ''[[Quarterly Review|The Quarterly Review]]'' to which he contributed reviews for the rest of his life.<ref>[[#Johnson|Johnson]], pp. 299‒300.</ref><ref>William B. Todd and Ann Bowen, 1998. ''Sir Walter Scott: A Bibliographical History 1796‒1832''. New Castle, Delaware, Items 10A, 26A, 36A, 245A. {{ISBN|9781884718649}}</ref>

In 1813 Scott was offered the position of [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|Poet Laureate]]. He declined, feeling that "such an appointment would be a poisoned chalice," as the Laureateship had fallen into disrepute due to the decline in quality of work suffered by previous title holders, "as a succession of poetasters had churned out conventional and obsequious odes on royal occasions."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/biography/poet.html |title=Scott the Poet |website=www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk}}</ref> He sought advice from the [[Charles Montagu-Scott, 4th Duke of Buccleuch|4th Duke of Buccleuch]], who counselled him to retain his literary independence. The position went to Scott's friend, [[Robert Southey]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/biography/poet.html |title=Scott the Poet |publisher=Walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk |date=11 December 2007 |access-date=29 November 2009}}</ref>