“THE BLACK DWARF”

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 269, 13 October 1932, Page 2

“THE BLACK DWARF”

(Contributed by Florence •Swinton Dry, 8.A., University of Michigan.) “The Black Dwarf” by Sir Walter Scott has been considered the one complete failure of its author, and is frequently omitted from the list of his works. In his book entitled “Sir Walter Scott,” Professor Saintsbury voices the general opinion of critics when lie writes of “The Bride of Lammermoor” —“a book which, putting the mere fragment of ‘The Black Dwarf’ aside, seems to me his first approach to failure in prose.” In an earlier paragraph of the same work, however, Saintsbury makes the one favourable comment on “The Black Dwarf” which I have yet found. He says, “I have always thought the earlier part of ‘The Black Dwarf’ as happy as all but the best of Scott’s works.” This centenary of the death of Sir AValter Scott is an appropriate time to emphasise the last criticism, and in this article I shall endeavour to show that ‘The Black Dwarf” is not the complete failure that it has been considered.

In addition to the good writing contained in the early part of “The Black Dwarf” and all that this implies, there are found two qualities which make the first six chapters the most modern of any of those in “The AVaverley Novels.” The first is an introspection which results from the Dwarf’s suffering, due to his deformity, which we may possibly trace to Scott’s hidden pain at his own lameness. Suffering is far more interesting than joy, and, being the more universal, makes a greater appeal, so that there are great literary possibilities in this work. The second quality is intensity. It is not width but intensity that we want these days. AVe have grown up, we want more than a story, however delightful it may be. AVe want a deeper insight into life, to understand the working of men’s minds, to learn their motives, and to suffer as they suffer. It is this very width of Scott’s creative genius, this breadth of subject matter and the treatment of it that turns us from him at the present time, rather than the great length of his novels. It is the fashion of the day to write long, detailed novels, and Tolstoy’s stupendous “Anna Karenin,” and “AA’ar and Peace” continue to increase in popularity. Scott had it in him to sustain the early excellence of “The Black Dwarf,” but a friendly critic, whose opinion he valued, prevailed upon him to shorten the work, saying that the reader would find the character of the Dwarf too revolting to be of interest. Accordingly, we find Scott hastening the story unduly, sweeping us along at white heat to a disproportioned conclusion, and in the end. leaving us emotionally cold. The novel’s one claim to greatness lies in a fact hitherto unpublished. This is that Emily Bronte selected “The Black Dwarf” as the source of her novel, “AVuthering Heights,” considered by some-critics to be the greatest English novel and the one most nearly approaching the sublime tragedy of “King Lear.” Every statement which I make in this article concerning the relation between the two novels has been substantiated in a little book which I have recently finished writing, entitled, “The Sources of AVuthering Heights.”' Space here allows for little proof. There are several reasons why Emily Bronte turned to “The Black Dwarf” when she conceived the plan of “AVuthering Heights” in 1846. In the first place Scott was her favourite author as we leajrn from Mrs Gaskell’s “Life of Charlotte Bronte.” For years she lived a secluded life at Howarth Parsonage, Yorkshire, on the edge of the moors, seeing few people besides her own family. She, alone of her sisters, did not rebel at the monotony of their life and their isolation from the world. She made a world of fantasy for herself out of her books ; naturally she would know “The Black Dwarf” intimately. In the second place, she learned from another of her favourites, Shakespeare, the tremendous literary force of making one human trait the predominant note of the theme and she chose the most fundamental, revenge. Accordingly, she went to Scott’s novel of revenge, “The Black Dwarf,” as the model of her story. Lastly, this particular work would appeal to her more than any other Scott novel. The setting is moorland like her own; it is more introspective and has more of the artistic quality of atmosphere than the others. The Solitary has several characteristics like those of Emily: a sombre, melancholy disposition; great intensity of feeling; physical strength; a passion for moorland scenery; a love of liberty and solitude; dislike of children, love for animals. She would feel at home with the book; it had the environment of her beloved moors.

Intensity is an outstanding characteristic of “AVuthering Heights” and, no doubt, this accounts for its increasing popularity. The language of her characters is much like that in the Scott novel, stilted and high-sounding, but nevertheless full of passion. Emily Bronte owes much to Sir AValter Scott. “The Black Dwarf” was part of the first series of “Tales of My Landlord,” and appeared in 1816. In the first paragraph of “AVuthering Heights,” the speaker, Mr Lockwood, lias gone to the home of his solitary neighbour and landlord, Mr Heatheliff. The story that follows is really a “Tale of (about) My Landlord.” It is told in retrospect as is the life story of the Black Dwarf. In “The Black Dwarf” the young man who may be termed the hero in the popular sense is called Earnscliffe; the villain is Ellieslaw. Emily Bronte has combined the two words, using the first syllable of the one, and the second syllable of the other, changing only the letter 1, producing the worn Earnsliaw for the name of her unhappy and persecuted family. She prefixed the word heath logically enough, to the last syllable of Earnscliff, and named her villain, Heatheliff.

The heath is the sotting of both novels, a “Misanthropist’s Heaven” ; the characters in “AVuthering Heights” link up astonishingly with those in “The Black Dwarf,” except Catherine from Katharine in “The Taming of the Shrew,” and Edgar from the character bearing the same name in “King Lear.” Heatheliff corresponds with the Dwarf, although, the idea for his entrance into the story, Emily Bronte gained from another moorland novel by Sir AValter Scott, “Guy Mannering,” in which little Harvey Bertram was captured by gypsies out of revenge for past wrongs; the plot likewise tallies. In chapter XV of “The Black Dwarf,” the Dwarf's agent tells the life story of the former to_ Isabella Vere. Emily Bronte took this ns an outline, giving it a West Yorkshire moorland setting, instead of a Scottish one, and selecting her characters from the yeoman class, instead of from tlio aristocracy. She made Nelly Dean tell the tale of the landlord, Heatheliff, taking as her model Scott’s most admirable character Jeanie Deans from another novel in “Tales of My Landlord,” he., “The Heart of Midlothian.” There are many parallel passages, besides. All this adaptation indicates an amazing lack of originality on the part of Emily Bronte in composing “AVuthering Heights,” an absence of that creative faculty possessed so abundantly by Scott, her model, but the excellence of the novel shows that she possessed a marvellous literary sense, enabling her to select what gave promise of being the author’s masterpiece for the foundation of her novel,

and to cull tli© most striking characters from the gems Of moorland writings. Had Sir Walter remained true to his artistic sense instead of writing to please the public, he would have surpassed lier, but as it stands, “The Black Dwarf” compared with “AVuthering Heights” is “As AVater unto AVine.”