Retrieve Ivanhoe Translated By Walter Scott Available As Textbook

was a painful reading experience. "La venganza es una fiesta para los dioses, "

Sir Walter Scott, fue el fundador de la novela histórica romántica, y es con "Ivanhoe" en donde el género se instala para siempre en la literatura.
Este prolífico autor inglés posee una veintena de estas novelas y con cada una de ellas iba perfeccionándose, logrando con esto, ejercer una marcada influencia entre sus pares y los autores que quisieron seguir dicha influencia.

Con el correr de los años fueron apareciendo grandes ejemplos de novelas históricas en todos los países, tal es el caso de la monumental "La guerra y la paz" de Lev Tolstói y "La hija del capitán" de Alexandr Pushkin en Rusia, de "Nuestra señora de París" de Víctor Hugo y "Los tres mosqueteros" de Alexandre Dumas o "Salambó" de Gustave Flaubert en Francia y de una lista interminable que ocuparía varias páginas.

Al igual que Cervantes, Scott debe haber recalado en varios libros de caballería, incluidos el Orlando Furioso y el Quijote para escribir el suyo ya que, aunque publicado ense ubica en la época medieval para contar la historia de este enfrentamiento entre normandos y sajones en la Inglaterra de la época de los templarios.

Más aún, todo transcurre durante los años del reinado de Ricardo I, Corazón de León quien está cautivo en Palestina y presuntamente muerto, mientras su déspota hermano Juan sin Tierra ejerce una tiranía despreciable debido a su unión con los normandos para someter al pueblo sajón.

Los duelos entre caballeros medievales, con sus lanzas y armaduras, los salteadores de caminos, las bellas damas y los bosques presuntamente encantados y los castillos imponentes son los condimentos esenciales de esta novela y su ambientación por parte del autor es indispensable y habitual.

Los personajes que llevan a cargo las distintas aventuras son de lo más variopintos y cada uno de ellos cumple una función esencial, desde Juan sin Tierra, pasando por Brian de BoisGuilbert el caballero Templario normando y rival de Ivanhoe, Maurice de Bracy, Frente de buey, Cedric de Rotherdam, padre de Ivanhoe y por supuesto Ricardo I Corazón de León y muy especialmente el arquero Locksley quien es nada más y nada

menos que el famosísimo Robin Hood de Sheerwood.
Gurth el porquero y Wamba el bufón, aunque al principio parecen secundarios, se transformarán en roles principales de toda la novela, Son como versiones mucho más combativas de Sancho Panza,
Como no podía ser de otra manera, sobresalen dos personajes femeninos que son el sostén de toda la lucha entre estos caballeros, me refiero a la bella Rebecca, hija de un comerciante judío, Isaac de York y hermosa Rowena, una hermosa sajona adoptada por Cedric.
El contrapunto entre estas dos damas es brillantemente llevado a cabo por Scott, más puntualmente en el último capítulo,
De todas los sucesos que ocupan la novela, el mejor es la toma del castillo normando de Frente de buey llevado a cabo por los sajones en una sangrienta lucha para rescatar a la bella Rowena.

Un tema que me llamó mucho la atención es el tratamiento que Scott hace del judío Isaac de York y de los judíos en general, ya que por momento pude notar una especie de aberración a los hebreos que por momentos se torna bastante violenta por la discriminación y el desprecio que sufren Isaac y Rebeca tanto de parte de los normandos como de los sajones.

Los judíos, que a los largo de la historia y desde la época del mismísimo Jesucristo, han deambulado por el mundo, sufriendo la persecución de los romanos, de los templarios como en esta novela, de los rusos, los daneses y los bretones, la persecución y expulsión de España a cargo de los moros y ni que hablar de las atrocidades que los nazis les hicieron durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

No es la primera vez que me encuentro este tipo de desprecio literario en libros de autores clásicos, En una parte de esta novela se dice de ellos:"Ten presente que hablas de un judío, de un israelita, tan incapaz de soltar el oro que una vez ha tocado, como lo son las arenas del desierto de devolver el agua que ha derramado en ellas el viajero.
" Esa frase me remite a otra, bastante racista de la novela Tarás Bulba de Nikolai Gógol: "Lo primero que brilló ante los ojos del judío fueron los dos mil ducados de recompensa por la cabeza del cosaco pero se avergonzó de su codicia y pugnó por reprimir dentro suyo esa eterna fijación en el oro, que habita enroscada como un gusano en el alma de todo judío.
"
El tratamiento que se hace de los judíos es el punto más flojo y reprochable de la novela, y para colmo de males, es uno de los temas principales del libro.

También he de decir que en cierto modo me sentí defraudado con Ivanhoe el personaje, y más puntualmente por la manera en la que el autor hace salir al personaje de escena después de un duelo, dejándole casi muerto, ya que gran parte de la acción mal llevan adelante los otros personajes, para reaparecer recién en la acción en el capítulode losque tiene el libro.

Algo similar sucede en la "Ilíada" de Homero en la que Aquiles también desaparece para volver hecho una furia cuando Héctor asesina a su amante Patroclo.

En líneas generales, "Ivanhoe" es un libro entretenido a medias, ya que por momentos se torna tedioso y es realmente extenso, pero que en ciertos tramos posee aventura, mucho humor gracias a la intervención de algunos de sus personajes, lo que le valió a Sir Walter Scott para fundar la novela romántica que aún hoy se sigue publicando y leyendo en todo el mundo.
I can see now, after having read Ivanhoe, where most of our notions of the medieval ways and of Robin Hood originated.
It seemed at once both familiar and foreign jumping into this book, I could see the beginnings of certain conventions and the glaring lack, as well, It reminded me both of the Canterbury tales and of old Hollywood movies it was actually kind of weird,

It begins with two minor characters, for instance, and not the main character, Ivanhoe, Ivanhoe is actually introduced somewhat late, and he's mostly incognito in his first appearance, so you're kind of thrown into the story with little or no ties to anyone in particular.
It's hard to care about the characters or the story that way, so I didn't have much emotion invested into the story and got easily bored.
After a few chapters, I found myself watching themovie adaptation to get me jump started, the one starring Robert Taylor, which, notably, didn't start with the minor characters at all but started with Ivanhoe's back story, him coming back from the crusades, on a mission to raise enough money to free King Richard.


This is what the book lacked in the beginning, It lacked that motor, that thing that gives readers a reason to read through all the descriptive chapters in which nothing really happens just yet.
As a result, the book seems a bit aimless and happenstance, and it's hard to figure out who to even care for, until you get deeper into the book and discover some of the whys and wherefores of the situations.


For instance, Ivanhoe and Rowena are childhood sweethearts, and you're supposed to root for them as a couple, but they are apart for most of the book, and you barely see them express their love for each other.
There is, in fact, very little that happens in the span of the book that would lead anyone to think that Ivanhoe is better off with Rowena than with any other woman.
And there IS another woman, Rebecca, in the book who through her actions seems a more deserving character than Rowena, There's another man as well, for Rowena, but the point is Rebecca is the one the reader would rather root for to win the heart of Ivanhoe.
Rebecca actually, genuinely cares for Ivanhoe, not just in an emotional sense, partly out of gratitude for Ivanhoe's kind treatment of her father, but in a medical sense, when Ivanhoe gets mortally wounded in a tournament.
She's the one who looks after him and with her exceptional healing skills helps him to get better, She's the one who generously funds him, too, using the jewelry she has inherited from her mother, Not only that, but when Rebecca needs saving, it's Ivanhoe alone who saves her, So Rebecca seems a more likely heroine than Rowena  at least in my eyes, The story revolves more around her than around Rowena,

But Rebecca is Jewish, and I guess that and the fact that Ivanhoe and Rowena were childhood sweethearts, make any relationship between Ivanhoe and Rebecca impossible.
The way the book is written, it absolutely makes no sense to a modern reader of romance, If there was more interaction between Ivanhoe and Rowena, or if more of their back story was revealed, then I think it would have made more sense and been more gratifying to have them come together in the end as it was, you have only the author's word that Ivanhoe and Rowena were already an item before any of the events in the book happened.


So for me, that romance story arc needed more of the usual conventions to make it work,

The actionadventure story, similarly, needed more of the usual conventions, or at least a proper back story to give it more reason to exist.
I couldn't figure out, for instance, why Ivanhoe needed to enter the tournament at all, In the movie version, it was because he needed the prize money for King Richard's ransom, but the reason in the book is actually not that clear, and the tournament turns out to be a very big part of the story.
The later two parts of the actionadventure makes a little more sense there seems to be a clear mission, rescue the hostages from within the castle, and later, save Rebecca from a death sentence by being her champion and winning a fight.
So I could more easily accept the plotting in those areas, The first third, though, seemed a bit senseless to me,

The language seems appropriate for the time, yet easy enough to read, The characters were nicely drawn, and some of them were actually very engaging, For a main character, though, Ivanhoe appeared only partly drawn  the other characters were better developed and more likable than he was, Also, as he was injured for much of the book, he was absent from a lot of the action and so seemed more like a prop than a main character.


Nutshell I can see why some people might laud this book, if it was one of the first of its kind, but at the same time it was kind of baffling and boring by the standards of today.
I imagine books in this genre have come a long, long, LONG way since this first came out, and if this book were rewritten today, it would be a very, very different book indeed.


I wasn't wowed, but it wasn't TOO bad,

Finished reading March,, There is something unique about a novel writtenyears ago about a point in history thatsyears before that, With most modern historical fiction works, the relationship between the past and the present are at least halfway understood, But with Ivanhoe, this relationship is obscured by the years since it writing,

My interpretation is that Scott used this story to reflect upon religious irony between the two time periods, He depicts medieval religion as selfserving, power hungry, and especially antisemic, It may have been Scotts hope that the depiction of such deplorable behavioryears ago would have created a place where these acts could be contemplated in isolation from Scotts present world.
The hope being that a condemnation of people in a fictionalth Century England would carry subconsciously into judgements of similar behavior in Scottsth Century world, where all of these afflictions still existed.
To this end, Scott shows his cards with a single solitary line in the novel: “Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!” Anything more than that would risk breaking the seal between Scotts fictional world and Scotts reality where humanity actually lived.


The overall story is typicalth Century writing, Long narrative passages that tend to overly stretch out the story, The writing is filled with vocabulary that is seldom in use today, Making matters worse, is theth Century dialog of the characters, which amplifies the antiquated English, But at moments, Scott does a good job bringing knights of the medieval England alive, He even brings the legendary Robin Hood to life, which may have been anticipated by his readers due to time period, In short, theres entertainment and contemplation here for readers of any century provided that you have the patience to make it through to the end.

Ivanhoe! Ivanhoe!
When these credits sounded in thes, we children were eager to be in front of our black and white screens to follow his adventures where this handsome knight on his white horse came to the underprivileged aid.

I have found several heroes who rocked my childhood, Ivanhoe and Robin de Locksley, known as Robin Hood, King Richard the lionheart, and the evil Prince John.

Ivanhoé is a great actor who has disappeared from Roger Moore born inin England and died inin Switzerland, So I pay him a warm tribute for all these hours of true happiness, especially the adventures he made me live in my childhood, with this bit of note.
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