Identifier: introductionto00panc (find matches)
Title: An introduction to English literature
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Pancoast, Henry Spackman, 1858-1928. (from old catalog)
Subjects: English literature
Publisher: New York, H. Holt and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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Text Appearing Before Image:
The new interest in the Middle Ages and and in the
ballad poetry and folk-song of England, finds its
greatest interpreter in both the poetry and prose of
the author of the Waverley Novels, who remained
for so long a time "The Great Unknown".
Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, August 15,
1771. He took a genuine pride in the fact that he
came of "gentle folk," and traces, in his Auto-
biography his lineal descent from that ancient chief,
Auld Watt of Harden, whose name I have made to
ring in many a Border ditty, and from his fair dame,
the Flower of Yarrow; no bad genealogy for a Border Minstrel. *
His father, for whom Walter was named, was by
profession a Writer to the Signet (attorney). His
mother was Anne Rutherford, daughter of a di
tinguished physician of Edinburgh. Walter seems
to have been a most engaging child, and a great
favorite with his elders, who were ready to tell him
the stories of local legend in which he delighted.
* See Lockharts Life of Scott, vol. i. chap. i. Consult also
Lady of the Lake, cant. v. verse 7, supposed to be a
description of Scott's border ancestry.
Text Appearing After Image:
SIR WALTER SCOTT
THE BEGINNING OF MODERN LITERATURE 839
He thus came to know the past of his country as he
only knows it who learns it, not from books, but from
the rural depositories of tradition. So Darsie Latimer,
in Redgauntlet heard from the lips of Wandering
Willie the marvelous tales of his ancient house.
Much of Scott's childhood was spent in the country
at Sandy Knowe, and here he was in familiar in-
tercourse with the country people. He sat at their
firesides, listening to scraps of old ballads and quaint
songs, stories of Border feuds and Scotch supersti-
tions, anecdotes of the great risings of 1715 and 1745.
He thus laid, deep in his wonderful memory, the
foundations of that knowledge which he was to put
into the best setting.
By his genial and embracing sympathy, he, as it
were, was able to absorb Scotland herself, the out-
ward aspect of her valleys, glens, and lochs,
her towns, her fishing villages and hamlets, her people's
life, her history, spirit, and tradition, and lift them,
by the simple force of his imaginative and poetic
art, into the unchanging region of literature.

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