Lucia di Lammermoor

Abstract

Sir Walter Scott in History and Culture: “A hundred lines of Marmion”: in Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie published in 1961, Miss Gaunt gives Rose Stanley a punishment, which consists of learning a hundred lines from Scott’s greatest poem, Marmion. Rose is an appealing blonde “famous for sex” but unable to spell “possession”, hence the transgression and the consequent retribution. Identifying Marmion, published in 1808, appears to punish Scott as well, despite the fact that Spark’s first literary achievement came about when she won First Prize at the age of 14 – she had composed verses commemorating the first centenary of Scott’s death. She was again writing about Scotland’s greatest writer in 1994, at the age of 76. For Muriel Spark, as well as for many Scottish writers and the reading public alike, Scott is the literary bulwark she cloisters herself in. She does this quite intentionally, not without a gentle dose of irony, and somewhat guardedly, too. Spark writes frequently about Edinburgh, a city she shares with Scott. They were actually born just over a mile and 147 years apart. [excerpt]