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• Title: Anti-Nationalism in Scott's Old Mortality (Critical Essay)
• Author : Montserrat Martinez Garcia
• Release Date : January 01, 2010
• Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 86 KB

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The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars were not only a turning point in the history of France but also in the history of Europe. The revolutionary and expansionist policy, consolidated with Napoleon, destabilized Europe and stirred a new feeling, nationalism. The threat of invasion, war arbitrariness and French tyranny were enough grounds to raise all the European countries and social sectors against this threat. The same crisis that entered the political domain broke into literature, where the historical novel emerged as a literary genre that tried to overcome the ideological disorder. Consequently, the historical narrative became the literary paradigm of the nation by invigorating its ideology and the collective image of the community as an organism bound by close and fraternal ties. As a mirror of the political landscape, nationalism emerged from the notion of unity, that is to say, from a deep intertwining between all discursive layers, acting as a good reminder of social harmony, security, and peace. Cultural homogeneity promoted conceptual homogeneity so that official tenets were regarded as absolute truth, as irrefutable and indisputable principles. Axiological absoluteness gave way to uniqueness in human thought and in interpretations of reality. In turn, the nation identified with this rigid reality and was conceived as a whole against other wholes. The ideological nationalist universe fractured into dichotomies; antagonisms between sameness and otherness around which prejudices, stereotypes, and hierarchies were built as barriers of isolation (Escarbajal and Escarbajal 13). The nation went hand in hand with war and militarization as bonds of national cohesion and transmission of social values, and this "brotherhood" explains why at the end of the nineteenth century in Europe the military structure was hailed as "a school for the nation," nameless, a disciplinary institution in which citizens learned the relevance of social commitment by fighting for collective and national integrity (Krebs 85). According to Raymond Williams, "War stands out as one of the fundamentally unifying and generalizing experiences: the identification of an alien enemy, and with it of what is often real danger, powerfully promotes and often in effect completes a 'national' identity. It is not accidental that talk of patriotism so quickly involves, and even can be limited to, memories and symbols of war" (182). As Patricia A. Simpson argues, the cornerstone of war culture derives from gender identity and from erotic desire, both linked to national identity (15-25). This means that not only has militarism become a rite of passage into maturity, but that it has also been a factor in the construction of gender identity (Mayer 283-84). This is Cynthia Enloe's argument when she postulates that "When a nationalist movement becomes militarized ... male privilege in the community usually becomes more entrenched" and that this process "puts a premium on communal unity in the name of national survival, a priority which can silence women critical of patriarchal practices and attitudes; in so doing, nationalist militarization can privilege men" (56-58). Walter Scott wrote Old Mortality in 1816 in the context of war and conditioned by three historical factors: the Presbyterian demonstration at Loudon Hill on 13 June 1815, Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, and the England's political and financial crisis in the wake of the postwar climate. Several days before the Battle of Waterloo, on 13 June 1815, a protest march took place in Loudon Hill (Scotland) to commemorate the Battle of Loudon Hill and the Presbyterian victory over the Stuart government in 1679. The demonstrators, thousands of farmers and workers from the manufacturing industry, profited by the occasion of the meeting to advocate for Napoleon's recent escape from the exile on the Isle of Elba and to protest against economic policy. The crowd tried to emulate the achievements of their Covenan

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