Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 23 on 14/10/2005.

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Illuminating landscapes

The fifth part of our series walking in the footsteps of Scott. Written and photographed by John Hannavy

In the introduction to the first edition of The Bridal of Triermain, Scott wrote a brief essay on the role of the poet, the different styles of poetry, and the expectations of the reader.

In it, he suggested that “in a word, the author is absolute master of his country and its inhabitants, and everything is permitted to him, excepting to be heavy or prosaic, for which, free and unembarrassed as he is, he has no manner of apology.” Scott was master of his country in more ways than one. As a literary giant from the earliest days of his story-telling – even before he admitted that he was the ‘author of Waverley’ – he held his readership’s undivided attention, and as a scene-setter, his descriptive powers were unrivalled.

Ask the average Scot about him, and he or she will probably mention the Waverley Novels – probably adding the fact that Edinburgh has, so it is said, the only railway station named after a novel – and perhaps even mention some of the better known of the epic poems. In this short series so far, we have already touched on the ways in which Scott painted his native landscape in epics such as The Lady of the Lake and Lord of the Isles But Scott was a prolific writer of shorter verses – verses which captured in a few lines the turmoil and pain of some of Scotland’s violent past – and of descriptive verses in his longer poems which make the Scottish landscape almost tangible. As a photographer, the challenge of capturing the essence of these verses in pictures is ir.....

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By John Hannavy

Section : Scottish Landscapes

Page number : 18