“Walter Scott’s Troubadours and Post-Napoleonic Europe in The Talisman and Anne of Geierstein”

Reappraising the presence of the troubadour and troubadour discourse in Romantic-period literature and culture, this essay specifically explores Walter Scott’s re-elaborations of the troubadour theme in his output from the Napoleonic aftermath to his final years, particularly The Talisman (1825) and Anne of Geierstein (1829). After outlining Romantic scholarly, critical, and creative investments in Old Occitan literature, it considers Scott’s views of 1820s Europe and how his troubadour interests relate to his concerns with the continent’s political situation. It subsequently analyzes the troubadour theme in The Talisman and Anne of Geierstein in light of Scott’s reflections on past and present-day Europe as an unstable geo-political and literary-cultural nexus informed by contending national and transnational tendencies. As this essay demonstrates, more than mere objects of erudition or features of historical color, Scott’s troubadours play a significant role in the darkening vision of post-Napoleonic Europe he developed in his later years.