Walter Scott’s Vision of Don Roderick (1811): a ‘Drum and Trumpet Performance’?

Abstract

Scott’s poem The Vision of Don Roderick was published in 1811, to raise funds
for the «Portugueze Sufferers» and rally support for Britain’s involvement in the Peninsular War —a campaign that was coming under mounting public criticism. Scott’s own description of his poem as a «Drum and Trumpet performance» has generally been read as an indicator of his dissatisfaction with The Vision —defined by contemporary reviewers as a circumstantial piece, quite different to his earlier poems. This article argues that Scott was, however, far from dismissive of The Vision. He distributed handsome copies to his close circle of friends and literary acquaintances, and even added a few miscellaneous poems to it, in order to secure new editions in the future. The historical span of the poem,
stretching from the eighth-century to present day Spain, was certainly problematic but, as this article attests, also inextricably related to Scott’s political agenda. The first part of the article considers the contentiousness of religious and historical themes then associated with Spain through a reading of Robert Southey’s Don Roderick; Last of the Goths (1814), a poem comparable to Scott’s in its subject, but markedly different in its scope and execution. The article then moves on to consider the national tensions (and specifically Scottish) concerns underlying The Vision’s narrative. It offers a discussion of Scott’s representation
of the Highlanders, his interest in the essential plurality of the Iberian Peninsula, dismissal of Sir John Moore, and opposition to the Catholic movement in Britain.