The Talisman - Sir Walter Scott (week 1)


Details
Sir Walter Scott is one of the most widely read writers in the English language, and The Talisman (1825) is one of his greatest works.
It tells the story of a Scottish knight who sets out for the Holy Land to join forces in the battle between Christians and Muslims--lead by Richard the Lion-hearted and Saladin, respectively--during Third Crusade (12th century).
Saladin was greatly feared and surprisingly admired by the West. He is notable for frustrating the Crusaders' 88-year reign in Jerusalem, and carving out an emirate stretching the borders from modern-day Tunisia, Yemen, Turkey, and Iran. Despite his effectiveness as a foe, he also gained a reputation as being merciful, generous, and honorable.
Unlike the Crusaders who killed the inhabitants of Jerusalem upon its capture, Saladin spared them. While the Crusaders defiled Islamic mosques, Saladin preserved Christian places of worship. He was known for generously redistributing what he plundered, and even ransoming a Christian woman from her kidnappers.
Saladin was extolled by Boccaccio and Petrarch, and Dante's Divine Comedy placed him in limbo (alongside virtuous pagans such as Plato; seven levels above Muhammad). But it was Scott's novel, more than any other single text, that boosted his reputation in the Romantic era.
Scott presents Saladin as the very model of chivalry (a sort of 19th-century European gentlemen), whose "deep policy and prudence" contrasts with "the warlike character" of Richard I, casting doubt on European policy in the East.
Week 1: chapters I - IX
Week 2: chapters X - XIX
Week 3: chapters XX - end
The Talisman:
Supplemental:
- Life and Legacy of the Sultan Saladin lecture by Jonathan Phillips
Extracts:
- "...every one remembers that story of Saladin and Richard trying their respective blades; how gallant Richard clove an anvil in twain, or something quite as ponderous, and Saladin elegantly severed a cushion; so that the two monarchs were even—each excelling in his way—though, unfortunately for my simile, in a patriotic point of view, Richard whipped Saladin’s armies in the end." (White-Jacket, 39)
- "why disown / The Knight of the Leopard—even he, / Since hereabout that fount made moan, / Named Diamond of the Desert? .... Such shadows we, one need confess / That Scott’s dreamed knight seems all but true / As men which history vouches." (Clarel, 2.16)
- "Yet, rather, are we scabbards to our souls. And the drawn soul of genius is more glittering than the drawn cimeter of Saladin." (Mardi, 1.32)
- "...ever since those inventive but unscrupulous times when... the dolphin was drawn in scales of chain-armor like Saladin’s... has something of the same sort of license prevailed, not only in most popular pictures of the whale, but in many scientific presentations of him." (Moby-Dick, 55)
- "The spear like some crusader’s pole / Dropped long ago when death-damps stole / Over the knight in Richard’s host, / Then left to warp by Acre lost" (Clarel, 2.23)
- "Jack had read all the verses of Byron, and all the romances of Scott." (White-Jacket, 4)
- "...those monk-soldiers helmet-crowned, ... may have borne this blazon rare, / And not alone on standard fine, But pricked on chest or sinewy arm, / Pledged to defend against alarm / His tomb for whom they warred?" (Clarel, 4.3)
This meetup is part of a series on The Crescent and the Cross.

The Talisman - Sir Walter Scott (week 1)