Walter Scott’s Debt To Shakespeare

It is possibly safe to assert that there is a coincidental connection between William Shakespeare and Walter Scott,though they live in different times.They initially write for livelihood,and accidentally,plant great fame as a spare.One of Shakespeare’s brilliant contributions is history plays,and coincidentally,Walter Scott shares similar partiality to history as the pioneer of historical novels.They endeavor to present the romantic past with the appropriateness of handling historical authenticity and artistic fiction,which makes it possible to explain and establish history through artistic imagination.Scott depicts the historical figure of Richard Coeur-de-Lion and historical customs in Ivanhoe,as Shakespeare does in his history plays.More exactly,Scott’s Ivanhoe to some degree reminds readers of Shakespeare’s plays.On the one hand,the quotation of lines from Shakespeare’s dramas is obvious in Ivanhoe,which covers The Merchant of Venice,King Henry Ⅴ,King John,Richard Ⅱ,and Richard Ⅲ.On the other hand,the allusion of the jester Wamba is Shakespearean wise fool,Touchstone of As You Like It.As Shakespeare does in the comedy of The Merchant of Venice,Scott describes the Jews,Isaac and Rebecca,conveying his viewpoint on the hit issue of anti-Semitism.Compared with Shakespeare’s figure of Jessica,Rebecca is fully more than a mortal,with a better knowledge of truth,love and beauty.Additionally,romantic elements are of super significance in Scott’s Ivanhoe in which the romantic wood,the disguise,the ghost,and the madness could find their counterparts in Shakespeare’s works.On the whole,apart from the Introduction and Conclusion,there are still three parts.Chapter One mainly manages the description of social customs and kings.When Scott and Shakespeare rewrite history,they have applied similar approaches.Chapter Two concerns the difficult situation of Jews,fools’ pound wisdom,and Jewish “angels” in the novel of Ivanhoe and some relevant plays of Shakespeare.So Scott reveals the universal humanity as Shakespeare does.Chapter Three deals with romantic elements of Ivanhoe and of Shakespeare’s dramas,i.e.the romantic wild woods,the disguise,the ghost and the madness.In this regard,it is perhaps safe to say Scott has inherited and developed Shakespeare’s romanticism.