Sir Walter Scott, Jews and Saracens, and Other Sundry Subjects
by Ibn Warraq (May 2009)
PART ONE
Edward Said, the late Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, has, in his influential Orientalism, a characteristically shallow, sneering aside on Sir Walter Scott, and, in particular, on his novel, The Talisman:
“In Scott’s novel The Talisman (1825), Sir Kenneth (of the Crouching Leopard) battles a single Saracen to a standoff somewhere in the Palestinian desert; as the Crusader and his opponent, who is Saladin in disguise, later engage in conversation, the Christian discovers his Muslim antagonist to be not so bad a fellow after all. Yet he remarks:
‘I well thought…that your blinded race had their descent
from the foul fiend, without whose aid you would never
have been able to maintain this blessed land of Palestine
against so many valiant soldiers of God. I speak not thus
of thee in particular, Saracen, but generally of thy people
and religion. Strange is it to me, however, not that you
should have the descent from the Evil One, but that you
Posted on 04/30/2009 6:16 PM by NER
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