Somewhere along the normally parallel lines of fact and fiction, the two opposing entities meet in what has proven to be fertile ground for entertainment . It's a sort of uncanny valley, there is something infinitely fascinating about that which imitates reality but remains fiction – that which crosses the border into reality bearing an ethereal resemblance to reality only to disappear into the realm of the fictional. This flirtation between the real and represented worlds – this dance both restless and transcendent beyond its boundaries – is both art and artifice, and the products it produces are rarely received without a corresponding ambivalence. Before reality TV came on the scene as the latest installment in this series of almost grotesque reality simulations, the novel made its own popular but far from scholarly appearance. Although the novel has since risen through the ranks and perhaps even surpassed the heights of literary nobility enjoyed by verse, it too once occupied the lowest, soulless rank of reality television. Charged with the capital crime of lying disguised as truth, the novel has been decried as sinful, misleading and false. But if the inherently misleading nature of verisimilitude offends, it also entertains. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Based perhaps most fundamentally on this premise of verisimilitude – a strange self-contained paradox of what reality is like – the novel presents an interesting tension between fact and fiction, blurring what was once presumed an intractable division between two concepts absolute. In Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott further obscures this perceived distinction between the real and represented worlds, proposing the historical novel as an even more complex appendage to an already philosophically dense genre. Born from Scott's experimentation with facts and lies, historical fiction itself is inherently paradoxical. Even more than the novel in general, the genre of historical fiction gives rise to tensions between the dichotomy of true and false, of reality and fiction. This kind of novel mixes what should be seemingly irreconcilable opposites: history – that which is presumed objectively true – and fiction, that which is presumed objectively false. In Ivanhoe, Scott seeks to resolve the tension that plagues the novel with accusations of deception by ultimately discrediting the notion of objective truth – in history or in narrative. While Scott's tale illustrates the blending of Saxon and Norman cultures, on a narratological level his work blends history and romance. However, neither act of communion is perfect. Just as the union of the Saxon and Norman kingdoms resulted in the birth of a new national identity, not without defeating the old order, Scott's blending of history and romance simultaneously produced a new genre as well as death of objective truth. Early critics of Scott's work – including, significantly, Scott himself – have noted and analyzed his complex relationship with history and fiction, the relationship is usually presented as a binary relationship, one end of which is ultimately supposed to defend the other (Morillo and Newhouse, 270). In their analysis of Ivanhoe, John Morillo and Wade Newhouse attempt to "depart from this dominant binary division in Scott's criticism", instead proposing a reading that seeks to register the relationship, rather than the division, between fiction and history at Scott's. Invoking James Kerr and his assertion that "Scott questions the validity of literary forms for representing the past by makingappeal to a reality beyond the boundaries of fiction,” Morillo and Newhouse argue for viewing neither romance nor history as the vehicle through which Scott conveys truth (qtd. in Morillo and Newhouse 270). Although ultimately our conclusions diverge – Morillo and Newhouse present a theory proposing sound as the medium for Scott's truth – our analyzes both focus on Scott's "suspicions of the falsifying power of all narratives" – historical or fictional (Morillo and Newhouse 272). While Scott's novel as a whole is a narratological illustration of "the 'Descent of History into Romance' at work in the world, it is not a theme that operates entirely outside the realm of consciousness of the characters (Morillo and Newhouse 274). At different points in the novel, Scott depicts the characters themselves either directly witnessing or influencing the dissolution of fact into fiction. Once experience is filtered through narrative, it is inevitably and irrevocably colored by fiction. Morillo and Newhouse point to the rapid spread and falsification of the news of Athelstane's apparent resuscitation as evidence of this theme at work in the world represented by Scott. When Athelstane himself offers the explanation, he defends it against the king's skeptical remark that "such a story is as well worth hearing as a romance", asserting that in fact "there is no had no romance in the matter,” defending his own opinion. narrative as a truth corroborated by the facts of personal experience (Scott 473). Here Scott addresses the opposing nature of story and romance, implying a lesser dignity of the latter in Athelstane's defense of her story against accusations of romance. Although Scott does not hesitate to refer to Athelstane's own account of "the story of his escape" as such, from there Scott traces the transformation and ultimate corruption of the story into romance then that it passes to various audiences (Scott 474). The path of Athelstane's tale follows a large-scale version of the game telephone, transformed with each telling until it reaches the height of romance as the dramatization sung by the "opportunistic minstrel, Alan-a-Dale" (Morillo and Newhouse 273). Scott here illustrates the rapidity with which history becomes mixed with myth, and the impossibility of disentangling them once mixed. Although Scott can at least defend Athelstane's straight version of the story as the truth - being, as the author, the sole authority on what is true and what is not in the world of his novel – the true story does not have the luxury of a guarantee. truth, even in first-hand accounts. Once removed from the very moment of experience, truth becomes history and thus begins its inevitable descent into romance. A similar comment on the impossibility of pure history surfaces earlier in the novel with Rebecca's account of the siege of Torquilstone. Unable to see the battle from the position from which his weakened state prevents him from moving, Ivanhoe, bedridden – or rather pinned to the ground – asks Rebecca to recount the events to him. Like any form of narration, Rebecca's is, if not inaccurate, at least resolutely impure. Colored both by Rebecca's perception – and misperception – as well as Ivanhoe's own altered reception of it, Scott depicts the inevitable taint of the story, even from the moment of the action itself . Even though Rebecca is a first-hand witness to the events she seeks to tell as close to real time as possible, even by removing a single perspective and a single moment from the moment of the event, the story is irrevocably lost beneath the influence of the story. From there, Morillo and Newhouseargue for the roles of Rebecca and Ivanhoe to parallel the roles of the author and reader, respectively. Completely at the mercy of Rebecca's inexperienced and incomplete account, Ivanhoe must fill in the gaps left by his fragmentary knowledge of the war with his own interpretations. He does so, naturally, by relying on his own expectations of the reality that eludes him, informed and shaped by his “romantic visions of glory and heroism” (Morillo and Newhouse 278). Morillo and Newhouse compare Ivanhoe's approach to interpretation to that of Scott's reader. The "romantic predispositions" that shape Ivanhoe's perception of the battles are not unlike those that shape the reader's expectations of a romance novel (Morillo & Newhouse 279). However, Scott – like Rebecca – ultimately presents a deviation from these expectations. In a clearly dated reading of Ivanhoe from 1955, Joseph E. Duncan challenges a supposedly prevalent idea at the time that viewed the novel "essentially as a romantic adventure book—preferably for boys" (293). If Duncan's opening statements are troubling – particularly to the right of the em-dash – he manages to recover with the final argument that Ivanhoe, "far from being primarily juvenile and romantic, is essentially anti-romantic » (300). Although the view of Ivanhoe as an inversion – or at least a departure from – the expected paradigm of the Romantic tradition seems almost inseparable from even the most basic reading of the novel, it was – at least according to Duncan himself – even – a largely unprecedented assertion. at the time (293). If Duncan is to be believed, his argument – ​​while relatively simplistic and uncomfortably peppered with an overconfident use of the term "anti-chauvinist" – sets an important precedent that continues to form the basis of much of modern critiques of Ivanhoe. varies in its understanding of the implications of the "anti-romantic" tendency in Ivanhoe, I present it as a response to Newhouse and Morillo's aforementioned parallel between Rebecca, Ivanhoe, and Scott-Reader. Just as Rebecca's narrative subverts Ivanhoe's expectations of romance and heroism, Scott also seeks to subvert the reader's expectations of traditional romance. By inverting conventional romantic traditions, Scott prevents the reader from being rewarded for shaping their perception of the world according to their expectations. Scott refuses to let the reader accept his own expectations of romance or history as truth. Meanwhile, the plot developments that result from Scott's divergence from the expected romance also operate on a level outside the world of the novel, with Ivanhoe's imperfect union between Saxon and Norman cultures reflecting the Scott's sometimes odd marriage between history and romance as a genre. In his reading of Ivanhoe, Kenneth M. Sroka gives Duncan's argument a much-needed update. Like Duncan, Sroka notes the tendency to confuse Ivanhoe, initially, with a "simple chivalric romance illustrating the conventions of that form", before pointing out that closer reading "reveals that Scott's fidelity to the conventional romance form is tempered by altered conventions and deflations.” of idealistic imaginative elements” (Sroka 645). While Sroka argues that Scott's departure from the traditions of romance signals Scott's attempt to "create a more realistic romance", I instead propose that Scott's blending of romance and history seeks to challenge the notion of reality entirely. While Sroka sees Ivanhoe as a love story accredited and strengthened by truthhistorical, my readings see the novel as a historical truth adulterated, sullied and finally erased by romance. Both Sroka and Duncan trace how Scott follows and turns away. traditional romance, with Sroka's reading tracing Ivanhoe's progression through Northrop Frye's "three stages of successful quest," conquest, struggle to the death, and reconnaissance (Sroka 646). Although Scott's interpretations of each of these stages show marked variations from Romantic convention, it is perhaps his treatment of the "recognition" stage that is of greatest importance to the relationship between the implications social and philosophical aspects of Scott's treatment of gender that I propose. Much like the novel as a whole, Ivanhoe's conclusion initially seems consistent with the traditional conventions of the romance genre. The dawn of a new era of national unity is symbolized by both the fall of Torquilstone and the long-awaited union of Ivanhoe and Rowena, as well as the seemingly obsolete conclusion that renders earlier inversions of convention romantic by Scott entirely vain. The novel is, however, saved by the inversion within each of these dramatizations. While the fall of Torquilstone signals the promise of a new “future of peace and harmony,” it does not do so without simultaneously necessitating the death of the old order ( Scott 499). Dramatized in both the literal fall of the castle and the elegy in which Ulrica perishes, Scott makes it clear that the old order does not die a peaceful death. In fact, it is asserted that for this proposed harmony to reign, “all must first perish” (Scott 341). If Scott allows for a world in which peace and unity are possible, he does not allow it unless it is preceded by extreme violence. Thus, just as the union of romanticism and history in Scott gave birth to a new genre at the cost of objective truth, the union of the Saxon and Norman kingdoms gave birth to a new era, but at the price of death violent of the old. If the fall of Torquilstone signals the death of the old order, Scott ostensibly presents the union of Ivanhoe and Rowena as the promise of the new. Clearly equating marriage with "a pledge of future peace and harmony between two races", Scott makes no attempt to veil the allegorical significance of his characters, paralleling the Ivanhoe-Rowena, Norman-Saxon "marriages" so closely as 'they overlap in what threatens. to become a hackneyed fairy tale conclusion to an otherwise complex inversion of traditional romance (Scott 499). Assuring us that "the hostile distinction between Normans and Saxons seems to have entirely disappeared," Scott keeps Ulrica's promise that "strong hatred itself will expire" and seems content to let his tale conclude with a comfortable and happy (Scott 498, 341). However, once again, Scott's resolution is saved by a hidden inversion. If the union between Ivanhoe and Rowena is significant in dramatizing the union between the Norman and Saxon kingdoms, it is perhaps more significant in that it is not. That is to say, although Ivanhoe's marriage to Rowena conforms to the conventions of the romance genre, in Scott's novel the union is more remarkable in that it is not about a union between Ivanhoe and Rebecca. Neither Norman nor Saxon, Rebecca has no place in the “future of peace and harmony” promised by the Ivanhoe-Rowena marriage. Instead, Rebecca remains an outsider, for whom the supposedly harmonious English people remain “a fierce race, ready to plunge their swords into their bowels” (Scott 499). Sroka also sees something “threatening” in Rebecca’s exclusion from the world. new order (654).. 2016.