Walter Scott on Monarchy - (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Romanticism) by Tara Ghoshal Wallace (Hardcover)

About the Book

The first focused treatment of Scott's monarchs in historical context and biopolitical theory.

Book Synopsis

This book situates Walter Scott's novels on monarchy within both their historical contexts and biopolitical theory, particularly regarding the King's Two Bodies, a notion that, according to Ernst H. Kantorowicz, raises 'the spectre of an absolutism. . .in an abstract physiological fiction.' It attends to Scott's careful calibration of the historical record behind each novel while noting that his reflections on the seismic shifts caused by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era - culminating in The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1827) - informs his representations of monarchy in the novels. While each novel's consideration of the rights and limitations of royal prerogatives is deeply grounded in its own historical context, Scott's fiction and the Life demonstrate keen awareness of the nineteenth-century shift to what Michel Foucault calls 'governmentality' - that is, the sovereign power's project to control and protect subjects, often through surveillance, policing, and the strategic exercise of mercy.

Review Quotes

Beautifully crafted and a pleasure to read, Walter Scott on Monarchy effects a substantial reorientation of Scott's ground-breaking Waverley Novels. Rereading the series as a sustained reflection on sovereignty and governmentality, it offers fresh insights and constitutes a significant intervention in the current reconsideration of Romantic-era genres and historical thought.--Ina Ferris, University of Ottawa