Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe, Referenda: An Updated View of Walter Scott's Waverley

Abstract

Abstract: Walter Scott's novel of «The Forty-Five» Jacobite rebellion, Waverley, or 'Tis Sixty Years Since (1815), expressed the author's ambivalent position between support of Scottish individuality and a conservative pro-English stance. In the same way that the novel's publication sixty years after Culloden (1745) was meant to make his readers reflect on the advantages of Unionism, despite what it implied for the loss of Highlander culture and identity, the reading of Waverley two hundred years later, coinciding with the 2014 Scottish referendum to leave or remain in the United Kingdom, sparked a renewed interest in Scott's views on Scottish nationalism, and by extension his novel. This article analyses those features of Scottish individuality prevalent around the time of the uprising (landscape, poetry, hospitality, loyalty) that might resonate with the Scottish electorate to decide on their vote in 2014. At the same time, it examines Scott's complex attitude of attachment to both nations, Scotland and England, but ultimately in favour of union with the latter. As an added reflection, Brexit-related developments after 2014 are commented on, in view of how they have complicated Scotland's future.