Ivanhoe

The uniqueness of Sir William Scott's Ivanhoe comes from the fact that Scott wrote this Medieval tale of romance and adventure during the nineteenth century. The retrospective point of view that the audience gets in Ivanhoe is one that allows the tale to be told with fresh ideas. In the book, there are many themes that, at the time it is set in, would have been hard-hitting, widespread issues or divisions among the society, but during the time of Scott were only part of history. We see an example of this with the treatment of the Jews throughout the novel. In the Medieval Era, Jews were persecuted and detested, and while Sir William Scott portrays that distaste, it is clear that those feelings were not present at the time the book was written. Scott is able to incorporate these Medieval elements while giving an Enlightenment view on them.

This kind of retrospection allows the audience to explore past issues see not only how they affected the people of the time, but also how they allowed society to grow and shape itself around them. Another example of this in the novel is the status of women in society. In typical Medieval action stories, knights fought for king and country, and then for the women they loved, but in Ivanhoe, the knights put the women first, and the women are prominent in many ways. They do a great deal to aid the knights that fight for them. Critics of the novel have even said that this is a negative point to the novel as it detracts from the historical accuracy of the story. However, it seems that Scott is less concerned with the historical accuracy of the novel and more so with making it entertaining and shedding modern views on past problems. In the novel itself Scott nods to how these issues will affect the future as one of the characters remarks, "Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!" If Scott felt this way about the past time period about which he was writing, it's safe to say that most generations can also look back on any era with similar sentiments.

I think that Scott's newer take on old ideals is exactly what societies often do and should do. In all societies that I know of, people study history. They study the wars, the cultures, the music, the ideas, the stories, every bit of it. In any class we are in where we study history, we are learning about how those issues shaped our modern culture, and we also get to think about how our current issues are preparing the way for future generations to wonder how "such stupid bigotry [or whatever the issue may be] ever existed.

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