Talk: Unfriendly Friends and Friendly Foes: Negotiating Jacobitism in the Waverly Novels

An exporation of some of the complex negotiations of Jacobitism that take place within the Waverley Novels by Dr Alison Lumsden.

Speaker: Dr Alison Lumsden, Senior Lecturer, School of Language and Literature, University of Aberdeen

Hosted by: Library, Special Collections and Museums

Venue: Special Collections Centre (Lower Ground Floor)
University Library
University of Aberdeen
Bedford Road
AB24 3AA

There is a common perception that in his Scottish novels Walter Scott constructs a Romantic version of Jacobitism that helps consign the nation’s identity to an appealing but defeated past. In fact, as the allusion to Redgauntlet in the title of this talk suggests, Scott’s relationship to Jacobitism is far more complex than this. This talk will explore some of the complex negotiations of Jacobitism that take place within the Waverley Novels and also examine the ways in which Scott’s version of Jacobitism has been simplified and perpetuated through numerous adaptations of his work, many of which are held in the University Library’s Special Collections at the University of Aberdeen.

This event is part of a series of fascinating and engaging activities that accompanies the inaugural exhibition at the University’s impressive new Library, Rebels with a Cause: The Jacobites and the Global Imagination.

Rebels with a Cause: The Jacobites and the Global Imagination is the title of the inaugural exhibtion at the new Library at the University of Aberdeen. The exhibition displays treasures from the University’s rare book, archive and museum collections to explore and challenge traditional assumptions about the Jacobites.

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