About Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott was a Scottish poet, writer and historian born August 15, 1771 in Edinburgh and died September 21, 1832 in Abbotsford. Trained as a lawyer and fond of antiquities, he first traveled through Scotland in search of his past. He is best known for his poems The Lady of the Lake and Marmion. In 1804, he published Sir Tristrem, a version (which he considered purer than the continental versions) of the novel of Tristan, the manuscript of which he had discovered, and which he believed to be by Thomas d'Erceldoune, known as Thomas the Rhymer. In 1805, The Lay of the Last Minstrel was a great success (15,000 copies in 5 years) and brought him fame. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, he launched himself into literature, publishing old texts (Sir Tristrem) or texts belonging to the popular tradition (in The Minstrel Songs of the Scottish Border) as well as some of his own famous poems such as The Lady of the Lake. However, facing the rising glory of Lord Byron, he turned to the Scottish novel (Waverley), before moving towards the historical novel, Ivanhoé (1819) and Quentin Durward (1823).He is one of the most famous Scottish authors with David Hume de Godscroft, David Hume, Adam Smith, Robert Burns or Robert Louis Stevenson. He is also, along with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats, one of the most illustrious figures of British romanticism. He is also one of the representatives of the historical novel, he contributed to forging a romantic image of Scotland and its history. It is to him, in particular, that we owe the return of the use of the tartan and the kilt, the wearing of which had been prohibited by an act of Parliament in 1746.
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