The Lady of the Lake: A Poem (1810)

My sweetheart loves Jane Austen, in every form - paper and ink, or audio readings, or DVDs of performances. In Persuasion, we are set to ponder: Lady of the Lake, or Marmion? It's a wonder to hear Sir Walter Scott held up as the examplar of a Golden Age of Poetry. Weren't Keats and Coleridge writing then? Maybe my time line is a mess. But there is no denying that Sir Walter Scott was fabulously popular in his day, and not just his later novels. These long poems were something people cherished!

That day is so distant. Book length poems are mighty scarce, hardly more read than written. And poetry's popularity has simply evaporated. I imagine it was radio. It makes me wonder, how was poetry read, a long poem like this. The poetic structure, the rhythm and rhyme, make such poetry easy to read aloud - it is much more predictable than prose. What did people do with their time, before radio and TV and all the rest? Sure, one can sit by oneself with a book. But sharing a story is fun too, a nice way to hang around the fire. Maybe just one person needs a candle and others can listen in the dark.

The other day I was talking with the proprietress of the used bookstore down the street, who was being rather harsh, I think, to Edward Bulwer Lytton. I don't know that Bulwer Lytton wrote any poetry, but he certainly wrote potboiler historical fiction right in line with Scott's. Bulwer Lytton is even more forgotten than Scott, at least once folks tire of ridiculing him: "It was a dark and stormy night" - just because Snoopy liked it - hey, look at a list of novels most popular in the nineteenth century! Just because a style is out of fashion - OK, really great literature doesn't go out of fashion - Tristram Shandy could have been written yesterday, it is so fresh. But most of what gets read today will fade just as thoroughly as Bulwer Lytton or Scott. Which isn't to say that today's literature isn't worth reading and enjoying. It is to say, though, that Scott and Bulwer Lytton, too, can be read and enjoyed today, if the reader can just let go of the prejudices of current fashion.

Lady of the Lake is a lot like Ivanhoe. That's probably the full list of books I've read by Scott! They're not profound at all. They're just good entertainment. No doubt they can be analyzed and contemporary politics revealed etc. But if you can enjoy stories of knights and Kings and bardic minstrels and the wild country of Scotland from Loch Katrine to the town of Stirling - book length poems don't have to be as challenging as Milton or Browning. Scott's Lady of the Lake is rollicking fun! ( )

Book Description: Chicago: Scott, Foresman & Co. 1901. Cloth Bds. Nr VG/no DJ, Decorative Cover. 16mo, 264, The Lake English Classic.

no Jacket. 16mo - over 5¾" - 6¾" tall. 264 pages; map and introduction in front;

I think this was the first of Scott's long poems I read. I recall being terrified by the "nonnday hag" while reading it in bed in my uncle's farmhouse in Maine ( )

This book is valued at $16.50 according to www.ABEBOOKS.com

David Bryce & Sons Tartan Series #11. Printed at the University Press in Glasgow. Interesting bibliographical notes on the David Bryce miniature publications follow page 191. I have three copies. Two bound in Victoria silk tartan, the other is cardboard with printed "MacClean" tartan. One of the silk bound copies shows wear and now has a protective marbled paper book cover.