Scott and Classics

Summary of the Talk:

Dr Kerr explored the often-overlooked influence of classical literature and education on Sir Walter Scott’s life and writing. She argued that while Scott is usually viewed as a romantic medievalist, his deep grounding in the Greek and Roman tradition profoundly shaped both his imagination and moral framework.

She began by noting that Scott’s education at the Royal High School of Edinburgh—a bastion of classical learning—instilled in him not just language proficiency but a lifelong sense of order, civic virtue, and historical continuity derived from antiquity. Kerr compared this to the influence of classical models on other writers of the Enlightenment, suggesting that Scott stood at a crossroads between classical and romantic traditions, embodying both.

Scott’s engagement with the classics was not confined to youthful schooling: he maintained an active dialogue with ancient authors throughout his career. Kerr cited passages from Redgauntlet and The Lay of the Last Minstrel where Scott invoked ancient heroes and rhetorical forms, not merely as ornament but as part of a moral and narrative architecture rooted in classical virtue.

She also discussed how Scott’s sense of historical cycle and fate echoed classical historians like Livy and Tacitus, while his sympathy for national character owed something to Herodotus and Polybius. Yet Scott never imitated blindly; he filtered classical values through a distinctly Scottish lens, blending stoicism with humour and local colour.

Kerr observed that the classical balance between reason and passion is mirrored in Scott’s prose style—lucid and disciplined even when describing tumult. This quality, she argued, links Scott to Byron, who also struggled between romantic excess and classical restraint. In Redgauntlet, the theme of rebellion versus order parallels the Greek concept of hubris followed by nemesis.

Lockhart’s Life of Scott was discussed as a text that sometimes downplayed Scott’s classical dimension, portraying him more as a man of instinct and nature than of learned reflection. Kerr suggested this was a distortion, since Scott’s notebooks and marginalia reveal considerable familiarity with Virgil, Cicero, and the dramatists.

The lecture concluded with remarks on how Scott’s classical inheritance lived on through the Edinburgh Academy and later figures such as John Stuart Blackie, who sought to unite Scottish patriotism with Hellenic ideals. In this sense, Scott became a bridge between Athens and Abbotsford, joining moral seriousness with imaginative freedom.

Interesting Points Worth Mentioning

• Scott’s schooling at the Royal High School placed him in one of the most rigorous classical curricula in Europe, yet he later played down his learning to project an image of accessibility.
• Kerr described Scott as a “humanist in disguise”—a writer who cloaked ancient virtues in Border ballad form.
• The comparison between Redgauntlet’s rebellion and hubris in Greek tragedy was particularly striking, framing Jacobitism as both political and moral drama.
• Scott’s treatment of national history as moral exemplum reflects Roman historiography rather than purely romantic mythmaking.
• Lockhart’s biography, while affectionate, may have contributed to the “anti-intellectual” image of Scott that persists today.
• The connection drawn between Scott and Byron—both haunted by the classical ideal of moderation—offered a fresh reading of Scott as a writer of restraint, not excess.
• The legacy of classical humanism continued through institutions inspired by Scott’s example, notably the Edinburgh Academy, where the Greek and Latin moral ideal fused with a patriotic Scottish ethos.
  

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