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The Yearbook of English Studies for 2017 is dedicated to new interpretations of Walter Scott. Edited by Susan Oliver, the volume brings together fifteen essays by scholars from Australia, Europe and the Americas. These contributions represent vital and diverse directions in Scott studies, two hundred years after the celebrated ‘author of Waverley’ followed his early career as an antiquarian and poet with best-selling novels, verse dramas and a variety of prose non-fiction. The collection aims to extend our understanding of Scott’s literary works, public persona, home, onward influence as an authorial presence, and circle of associates. A conceptual framework that incorporates materialist, theoretical, textual, literary-historical and editorial approaches asks how critical enquiry into this globally influential author can most constructively move forward.
The essays are grouped in five themed sections. Beginning the volume, Section I looks into the transmission and afterlives of Scott’s writing, his persona as an author, and his home at Abbotsford. Section II is concerned with contemporary theoretical and critical approaches to Scott. The third group of essays focuses on his poetry, an area in which there is still relatively little published scholarship. In Section IV, it is Scott’s treatment of history and social conflict that provides the framework of enquiry. The concluding group of essays takes Scott criticism into the contemporary critical fields of literary geographies, island and Northern studies, antipodean studies, environmental justice and ecocriticism.
Contributors’ individual enquiries include life writing and archival research; theatre and performance; translation studies; disability studies; theories including ontology and problems relating to materialism and spirituality; the practical considerations of editing a new edition of Scott’s poetry; Scott’s representation of law; a postcolonial exploration of silence and absence; and matters relating to place, space and the natural world.
