Criticism, September 22nd, 1994
Sir Walter Scott's novel 'The Heart of Midlothian' responds to the belief that novels effeminize readers by actively masculinizing the text. One technique the novel uses is to frame the story with a lawyer secretly reading novels, contrasting the male law with the female novel. Scott also adds a masculine ending to the book through an Oedipal conflict rather than concluding when his heroine's quest was resolved. The novel condemns novels as a genre by relating novel-reading to a crime against the father prompted by the novels' seduction.
Scott's ambivalence about the status of the novel is we...
HighBeam Research, Free Preview: ''The Heart of Midlothian' and the masculinization of fiction.'... Full Membership required for unlimited access. Free 7-day trial.
Subscribers: HighBeam content is only available to HighBeam subscribers. Click the link above for more information.
