Scott's Metrical Romances: A Study in Continuity and Change

Abstract

Just as there are literary masterpieces which transcend age and nationality in their greatness and can be judged by the most absolute of artistic standards, so there are others, similarly the products of genius, which can best be evaluated relatively as highly significant to their age. Examples of the latter are the metrical romances of Sir Walter Scott. Overshadowed by the author's more popular novels, Scott's verse romances are historically more significant than his prose. While the Waverley Novels are the work of a mature writer who has struck off confidently in a new direction, Scott's narrative poems are preliminary skirmishes into the literary field and reveal the genius of their author's eclecticism in combining the materials and theories of two highly divergent literary periods.