What are your thoughts on Walter Scot's Ivanhoe?

Question

I'm just curious as to what you thought of it, nothing more.

Answer 1

At first read Ivanhoe seems an easily classifiable and predictable historical novel. You know the kind, like a Hollywood blockbuster. The bad are evil the good are just and righteousness will ultimately triumph. However, Scott isn't so simple. He addresses prejudice in a subtle, but convincing way, through the character of Rebecca (who outshines Rowena by a longshot). Scott also deals with the roots and potency of patriotism, family, forgiveness, and of dying idealism. Cedric, Ulrica, Rebecca, Isaac, Wamba, Gurth, and Brian de Bois Guilbert each have interesting facets which add depth to Scott's already engaging story line.
Overall I thought that Ivanhoe exceeded my expectations. Has it changed my life, no, but it is nonetheless, worth a read.

Answer 2

I liked the story. The version that I have is full of personal footnotes from Sr. Walter Scot. It reads like a travel log of feudal England in fine print. He includes his first impressions upon visiting the ruins of some of the castles in the book, the comfort and wear ability of a particular style of armor, and the common misconceptions about the knight errant. After I first finished the story I went back and read just the footnotes. It’s like a history book riding piggy back on a great novel.

Answer 3

I enjoyed it, Disney made an animated cartoon that took some major liberties with the plot. Ivanhoe was the serious precursor of Robin Hood.

It was a good romance, though a little twisted (in reference to Rebbecca and Rowena)

Pretty good.

Answer 4

tylee 14 has given you a superb answer. I will supplement it with my own personal experience. I first read Ivanhoe in ninth-grade English many years ago. I had already read Quentin Durward (because my family did not have many books around but we had a copy of this one). I learned how a kid should read Scott: skim the descriptions and expositions and read for the story, which is told mostly in dialogue. So when we came to the study of Ivanhoe, I was interested and ready. I actually read it word for word. And I liked it. I especially liked Gurth and Wamba. And the mystery and intrigue. And the jousting tournament. And figuring out all the historical background. I was fourteen, and I liked it. (I'm glad they hadn't coined the word nerd back then!)

Then we spent some six weeks in class, reading Ivanhoe and answering study questions about Ivanhoe and memorizing vocabulary from Ivanhoe, and taking quizzes over details from Ivanhoe (some of which I had already forgotten, for I had read it all the first week). By the end of the unit, I hated Ivanhoe, and never wanted to read Sir Walter Scott again.

Seven years later, as a beginning high-school English teacher, I found myself teaching Ivanhoe, as the assigned novel, to a class of 33 reluctant learners (28 guys and 5 girls), most of whom had already failed English once or were at risk of failing English and not graduating.

Now what was I to do? Well, for one thing, I did the unforgivable. I started with the Liz Taylor/Robert Young movie, not a very good one, but a good place to start. Anything w/ Liz Taylor in it in those days caught these guys' attention. As we watched scenes from the movie, together we read chapters from the novel, trying to determine whether the movie did a good job of capturing the novel or not, and how we might have done if better--or differently. We acted out scenes. We looked for parallels between the book and current news. We found real people that the characters reminded us of. We decided which Hollywood actors we would cast in the parts if we were making the movie again.

Once again I did the unforgivable. Though I assigned chapters for homework reading, I told them the story of how I had learned to read Quentin Durward when I was twelve or thirteen. (Now I called it "doing your own abridgement.")

Somehow we made it through--in about two weeks as I remember. Their favorite characters were--yep, you guessed it--Gurth and Wamba. And they thought Ivanhoe should have eloped with Rebecca (but then, remember, Liz Taylor played Rebecca). Now, if Kim Novak had played Rowena, she might have held her own.

Most of them passed English -- and graduated. And I suspect they never read another Scott novel. I fear many of them never read another novel at all. I learned that, if you want to engage teenagers in reading good literature, Sir Walter Scott may not be the best place to begin. (Catcher in the Rye might have been better, or Lord of the Flies, or To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Adventures of Augie March, or Deathwatch.)

But I rediscovered Scott for myself. I don't know how many of his novels I have read since, just about all of them. But you know what? My favorite is still Quentin Durward. (And I even read the descriptions now--quickly!) I'm afraid ninth-grade English ruined Ivanhoe for me forever -- except when somebody like Liz Taylor is playing Rebecca!

Thanks for the memories!

Answer 5

about a story happened during The Middle Age.

Answer 6

i thought it was pretty gosh darn good