Scott, Byron and the Poetics of Cultural Encounter This page intentionally left blank Scott, Byron and the Poetics of Cultural Encounter Susan Oliver © Susan Oliver 2005 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–9474–5 hardback ISBN-10: 1–4039–9474–9 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Oliver, Susan, 1955– Scott, Byron, and the poetics of cultural encounter / Susan Oliver. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–9474–9 1. Scott, Walter, Sir, 1771–1832—Knowledge—Scottish Borders (England and Scotland) 2. Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788–1824—Knowledge—Geography. 3. Scott, Walter, Sir, 1771–1832. Minstrelsy of the Scottish border. 4. Ballads, Scots— Scottish Borders (England and Scotland)—History and criticism. 5. Scottish Borders (England and Scotland)—In literature. 6. Borders Region (Scotland)—In literature. 7. Difference (Psychology) in literature. 8. Highlands (Scotland)—In literature. 9. Marginality, Social, in literature. 10. Culture shock in literature. 11. Boundaries in literature. 12. Geography in literature. I. Title. PR5343.S3O45 2005 821′.709353—dc22 2005047461 10987654321 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne For William This page intentionally left blank Contents Abbreviations and Conventions viii Preface and Acknowledgements ix List of Maps xi Introduction: North, South, East – and West; The Strangeness of ‘Debateable Lands’ 1 1 Collecting Ballads and Resisting Radical Energies: Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border 19 2 Scott’s Narrative Poetry: The Borders and the Highland Margins 69 3 Crossing ‘Dark Barriers’: Byron, Europe and the Near East in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Cantos 1 and 2 103 4 Byron’s Eastern Tales: Eastern Themes and Contexts 156 Notes 202 Bibliography 224 Index 233 vii Abbreviations and Conventions Full bibliographical details are provided at the point of first use. Thereafter, the abbreviations given below are used: MPW Walter Scott, The Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 3 vols. Edinburgh: Cadell, 1867 PWS Walter Scott, The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott. Ed. J. Logie Robertson. London: Oxford UP, 1917 Letters Walter Scott, The Letters of Sir Walter Scott. Eds. H. J. C. Grierson assisted by Davidson Cook, W. M. Parker and others. 12 vols. London: Constable & Co., 1932–1937 BLJ George Gordon Byron, Byron’s Letters and Journals. The complete and unexpurgated text of all the letters available in manuscript and the full printed version of all others. Ed. Leslie A. Marchand. 12 vols. London: J. Murray, 1973–1982 CPW George Gordon, Lord Byron. Lord Byron: The Complete Poetical Works. Ed. Jerome J. McGann. 7 vols. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1980–1993 Where I refer to the ‘Debateable Land’ in its period context I have adopted the spelling used by Scott and Byron, and most frequently found in archival and other primary literary sources. In instances where the word ‘debatable’ is used in a more general sense, I have employed the modern form of spelling. viii Preface and Acknowledgements Some years ago I became fascinated by the interest in borderlands and cultural encounter that informed much literature of the Romantic period. I wanted better to understand how individual and collective imaginations figured people from other societies during such a period of international instability. Amongst British writers of the early nineteenth century, Walter Scott and Lord Byron stand out as consistently interested in themes of human encounter and re-encounter. Scott, passionate about the Borders country of Scotland and about his nation’s turbulent, confrontational history, and Byron, as a compulsive traveller around the unstable margins of Europe and the Near East, and later a self-exile moving between various locations, hence naturally became the focus of my study. The present book aims to contribute to comparative literary scholar- ship. As is often the case when authors embark on a project, I believed I could encompass more material than a single volume would allow. Consequently, I had to relinquish some lines of inquiry in order to pursue others in anything approaching sufficient depth. Scott and Byron were prolific writers, and I do not pretend to cover all their work. I concentrate on Scott’s poetry, addressing his many novels only through passing mention. Nor have I included Byron’s Don Juan. To cover these extra areas adequately would require a further volume. Instead, my analyses explore trends as they emerge much earlier in the work of these internationally influential figures. Scott’s ballads and narrative poetry have been neglected for too long, even though that part of his work was formatively influential on his later prose fiction, on other writers across Europe, and on public attitudes towards society and history. Byron might not have pursued the course that brought his initial fame if Scott, as a poet, had not been his precursor. After the storm in demand that accompanied the publication of the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Scott, in turn, was obliged to respond to Byron as a competitor in the marketplace and as a fellow writer who frequently referred to his work. I concentrate on poems that most evince mutual and reciprocal interests on the parts of these two poets, or that reflect divergences in perspective towards cultural encounter. My larger aim has always been to open up new ways of understanding ix x Preface and Acknowledgements the complexities involved in any such encounter, through attention to poetic form, language and multiple contextual factors. Many people and institutions have made this book possible. The University of Cambridge generously provided financial assistance, in the form of domestic funding and a travel bursary from the Judith E. Wilson Fund. Wolfson College, Cambridge aided me financially in a number of ways, as did the Arts and Humanities Research Board. The Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Edinburgh, in providing me with a fellowship and bursary for a further project also gave me time and space to finalize details of my work on Scott and Byron. I have valued the intellectual environment of the University of Essex since my under- graduate years, and am delighted to have returned recently as a visiting fellow. I appreciated opportunities to present and discuss my work more widely within conference environments provided by the Sixth Interna- tional Scott Conference, BARS, the Centre de Recherche sur les Ecritures de Langue Anglaise, Université de Nice, NASSR, and the MLA. The University Libraries of Cambridge and Edinburgh, the Wren Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, the British Library and the National Library of Scotland each afforded me access to rare materials and other vital texts. I would especially like to thank Nigel Leask, Susan Manning and David Hewitt, each of whose expertise and willingness to share their extensive knowledge has been invaluable. Others who have assisted me through discussion, conference activity, encouragement and general advice include Gilbert Bonifas, James Buzard, James Chandler, Peter Cochran, Ian Duncan, Gary Dyer, Mary Favret, Susan Forsyth, Nancy Goslee, Robert Griffin, Peter Hulme, Simon Jarvis, Claire Lamont, Maureen Maclean, Michael Macovski, Jerome McGann, Chris-Ann Matteo, Ruth Perry, Michael Rossington, Sharon Ruston, William St Clair, Charles Snodgrass and Jennifer Wallace. My grateful thanks extend to the many other friends and colleagues at Cambridge and Essex who have talked with me about aspects of this book. Jonathan White has been a stalwart supporter throughout the project and my son, William, has sustained me at all times with his unfailing love, patience and good humor. List of Maps 1 Illuminated map of the Kingdom of Scotland, represented in quadrangular form, with drawings of buildings to show the principal places. xii 2 Highlands of Scotland, with the situation of the several clans and the number of men able to bear arms, as also the forts lately erected, and roads of communication or military ways carried on by his majesty’s command, with the seats of the most considerable nobility in the Low Country. xiii 3 Luffmann’s New Map of Hostile Europe, or, Seat of War, shewing all the Great Roads throughout the same, and the Principal Places of Action both by Sea and Land, from the commencement of the French Revolutionary War, to the present time. xiv All maps are reproduced by courtesy of the British Library xi Map 1 The ‘Kingdom of Scotland’ from the Chronicle of John Hardyng (c.1442–1450).