Ivanhoe: A Tale of a King, a Templar, a Jester, and, to a lesser extent, Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe (1819)- Sir Walter Scott (450 pages)

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott surrounds the story of Ivanhoe, a disinherited Saxon knight who has returned from his time fighting in the Crusades in the Middle East. The story begins in the forest near Ivanhoe’s family home, Rotherwood, as the reader is quickly acquainted with the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a character critical to the rest of the tale. From here the adventures continue to a tournament where several other important characters are introduced. The rest of the novel concerns the reconciliation between Ivanhoe and his father Cedric, the return of King Richard, and romantic pairings.

The readability of this work is quite strong especially given it was written in 1819, a little on the earlier side compared to most of my reviews. Sir Walter Scott’s phrasing and writing style overall is quite easy to read, especially with a plot that is often driven by strong action scenes however Scott’s writing style can be quite complicated in the beginning of chapters. At the beginning of chapters, especially ones that involve a changing of the scene, Scott does his best to set the stage for the reader. This involves describing the scene in detail, from nature, to the time of day, to the buildings, and people surrounding it. Scott does a masterful job of setting the scene; however, it can be quite verbose, especially with many archaic medieval terms used throughout the description. Regarding these archaic medieval terms, my edition had a helpful author’s note and glossary sections which helped me along the way with understanding some of the nuances of these words. I’m not sure if this was just in my edition but before each chapter began there was a quote or poem before the chapter began. I thought this provided great insight into how the chapter was going to proceed without spoiling any plot points. While some of the poems were more confusing than others, I enjoyed this unique entry into each chapter.

The thematic discourse in this work is quite rich with three main themes coming to mind instantly: honor and chivalry, romantic pairings, and othering. Honor and chivalry and how they are to be defined is central to Scott’s work. In Ivanhoe we have several different characters with each demonstrating honor or chivalry in a different manner, for the sake of brevity I will list a few. We have the disinherited knight Ivanhoe, a man of great honor and valor yet still disinherited from his father. We have a crew of bandits, who steal and break the law at every turn yet are very lawful amongst themselves. Lastly, we have Prince John who has claimed King Richard’s power in his absence. He is regarded as the ruler but as the reader sees he is very much lawless in his own ways. As you read Ivanhoe, ask yourself who embodies chivalry or honor the best or at least which pieces of each character exemplify honor the best. Secondly, romantic pairings are critical to the confrontations that occur in this work. Much like Scott provides great contrasts in the characters regarding chivalry, he does the same with the romantic pairings. Some requited, some unrequited, and some not leaving the reader altogether content. However, you look at it they provide interesting insight into the values of each character. Lastly, othering or treating others as different or alien to oneself is central to the work. As you read, you will notice three, or four, main groups each at odds with each other: the Anglos, the Normans, the Jewish people, and the Templars. Scott does a great job showing the conflict between each group in a region that was very much evolving at the time.

Now to my final section on enjoyment. I overall found Ivanhoe very interesting, a page-turner no doubt, but I found myself unhappy or at least unsure of where the plot took me, let me explain. This was likely my own fault, but I expected a tale called Ivanhoe to be a tale fully defined and driven by Ivanhoe, this was not the case. Ivanhoe instead is a tale surrounding Ivanhoe, Ivanhoe himself except for a couple of scenes is often just referred to or seemingly an auxiliary character. Once you acknowledge that I think you are already in a much better position than I was, I tried to fight the story in a way as I expected the tale to move back to Ivanhoe but instead, it kept moving on or expanding on other characters. Lastly, the ending itself was fulfilling. I would not say the ending was unexpected nor formulaic but somewhere nicely in between.

Overall, I very much enjoyed Ivanhoe. It is a great classic, chivalric, medieval tale surrounding a knight’s return to honor and return to his homeland. If you are looking for a slightly lesser-known chivalric medieval romance, I think this is a worthwhile read and one I can highly endorse.

As always, my scoring breakdown is below. Thanks for reading!

Overall: 7.3, a strong score driven by a well-rounded adventure.

Readability: 7, a relatively easy read hampered by some archaic language.

Thematic Questions: 8, a surprisingly strong discourse for a tale that could be misconstrued as a simple medieval adventure.

Enjoyment: 7, a good read overall once you acknowledge the tale surrounds Ivanhoe rather than being driven by him.