Allusions/references To Actual History, Geography and Current Science
- Waverley is set during the Jacobite rising of 1745, which sought to restore the Stuart dynasty in the person of Charles Edward Stuart (or "Bonnie Prince Charlie").
- The opening paragraph of chapter viii is frequently considered one of the major attempts at describing the specifically Scottish landscape in some detail.
- Scott uses a common humorous reference to the Old Testament story that David and supporting malcontents took refuge from Saul in a cave near the town of Adullam. When the Jacobite army marches south through the North of England, they are greeted with distrust rather than the anticipated support from English Jacobites or Tories. Eventually a few diehards or desperate individuals do join them, and the Baron of Bradwardine welcomes these recruits while remarking that they closely resemble David's followers at the Cave of Adullam; "videlicet, every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, which the vulgate renders bitter of soul; and doubtless" he said "they will prove mighty men of their hands, and there is much need that they should, for I have seen many a sour look cast upon us."
- The character of "Fergus Mac-Ivor" in Waverley was drawn from the flamboyant Chieftain Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry. During the King's visit to Scotland, Glengarry made several dramatic unplanned intrusions on the pageantry.
Read more about this topic: Waverley (novel)
Famous quotes containing the words actual, geography, current and/or science:
“Our ideas are the offspring of our senses; we are not more able to create the form of a being we have not seen, without retrospect to one we know, than we are able to create a new sense. He whose fancy has conceived an idea of the most beautiful form must have composed it from actual existence.”
—Henry Fuseli (1741–1825)
“Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A reaction: a boat which is going against the current but which does not prevent the river from flowing on.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“The present war having so long cut off all communication with Great-Britain, we are not able to make a fair estimate of the state of science in that country. The spirit in which she wages war is the only sample before our eyes, and that does not seem the legitimate offspring either of science or of civilization.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)