'Breathes there the man' by Sir Walter Scott<br /> by [[Sir Walter Scott]] in Scottish Poetry Library<br /> from ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’, Canto sixth<br /> accessed on 2025-08-25T11:04:25

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/breathes-there-man/

Old King Cole

Gawain is known as being chivalrous because he was the proper hero, who morals matched his fight. Sir Gawain’s shield represented "the five virtues of chivalry, which were friendship, generosity, chastity, courtesy, and piety. These where the virtues people strove to live by and those they demanded of kings and knights."

Sir Walter is so self centred he can't image that the Admiral (a very high rank - perhaps the highest? - in his profession) ever had a life or an acquaintance before renting Kellynch

In the 1995 adaptation Anne does say this. In reality it would have only made things uncomfortable for her, she is right not to speak. Her father would not understand her meaning and Elizabeth would take offense. Does anyone recall if she expresses this in the other adaptations?

I'd like to think that Anne would support Mrs Clay and Sir Walter if she thought they were genuinely in love but she can see Mrs Clays mechanisms - this may be her motivation rather than that Mrs Clay is "beneath him" (though it would be a match that shocked)

This is a hilarious image - all based on the family tree. Mr Elliot is part of the family but Sir Walter is not his father, he is the head of the family estate

All the changes indicate that the Crofts are practical, thinking of the servants convenience - they can get their own umbrellas rather than sending for them, the door was a nuisance - and not as obsessed with appearance as Sir Walter. They even move the looking glasses themselves.

All Baronets were "created", either bought or gifted by the crown. Mary wants Sir Walter to remain superior because he's more "established"

Sir Walter and Elizabeth left much earlier than they needed to

Is Mary being treated/acting like a child as she's seen Sir Walter do?

Like Sir Walter, Elizabeth cares more for appearances than substance

Mr Shepherd is so good at what he does and plays Sir Walter who is basically a child

Richard E. Grant as Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall in Persuasion (2022).

We are hearing the echo of Sir Walter and Elizabeth's opinions/words. This is a strange introduction for the main character, she is ignored and secondary. Chapter 1 focuses on Sir Walter and then the family context, Chapters 2 and 3 are a group setting (and people finally speak). A first time reader may not identify Anne as the main character till chapter 4 when the text pivots to focus on her. In chapter 1 we hear of Elizabeth's disappointment with Mr Elliot but the history with Wentworth is hidden till Anne is alone. Modern texts tend to have more active, vibrant main characters (like Lizzy Bennet) who have agency and push the story forward through their choices and actions. Fanny Price in Mansfield Park is another good example of the sort of main character modern readers struggle with.

Potential parallels to Mr Bennet's feelings for Mrs Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. Mr Bennet had been "captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good-humour which youth and beauty generally give, [and] had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her." (P&P Chapter 42) Perhaps this also parallels Sir Thomas Bertram's feelings for Lady Bertram in Mansfield Park. It's never stated that Sir Thomas regrets his match but she "captivated" him (chapter 1 MP) and became a "woman who spent her days in sitting, nicely dressed, on a sofa, doing some long piece of needlework, of little use and no beauty, thinking more of her pug than her children" (chapter 2 MP). It seems more fitting somehow that it was the men making choices led my their hormones more than the women (though you must consider Lydia Bennet). Austen points out constantly how women had few choices in life and marriage, they had to make good ones as they would be trapped, they did not have the same freedoms as men.

Sir Walter bases peoples worth on their lineage, not their actions or character - he mocks Lord St Ives for his father being a poor curate like this somehow makes him less of a person. Titles aren't worth anything to him if they are earned. Which is funny because Baronet is a title that could be bought or "earned" (gifted for performing some duty for royalty), it is the lowest ranked title that can be inherited. For all his airs Sir Walter isn't even part of the nobility.

Sir Walter is asking for the ridiculous - that people can stay in his home but not be allowed in the grounds. Mr Shepherd is very diplomatically stating that there is a standard set of usage for tenants (kinda like tenants rights).

Sounds like father and daughter are working together on her plot to seduce Sir Walter

I take this to mean that he wants to get paid too and he's probably being chased by Sir Walters creditors

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Two of Shakespeare's more fanciful plays, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream explore the limits of the human form through its characters: the grotesque monster-human hybrid Caliban in The Tempest and the comical Bottom from Midsummer, a human with the head of an ass.

Shelley is conscious of Frankenstein's play with generic convention, and the role genre has in its agreement with representation of reality. In his review of the first edition in 1818 for Edinburgh Magaizine, Sir Walter Scott seems cognizant of the shift in consciousness. He notes: "The real events of the world have, in our day, too, been of so wondrous and gigantic a kind--the shiftings of the scenes in our stupendous drama have been so rapid and various, that Shakespeare himself, in his wildest flights, has been completely distanced by the eccentricities of actual existence."

Highlights the slight strife between "old" and "new" money. Lady Denham's words seem reminiscent of Sir Walter Elliot's disdain for those who made their fortune instead of inheriting it in Persuasion.

Austen pokes fun at this character once again -- he is too cheap to put the maximum effort into pretending to be a Byronic hero.

In these two paragraphs, Sir Edward thinks himself a “Byronic hero” of sorts—albeit an early one, as the poems that cemented the trope were published between 1812 and 1818. The Byronic hero was known for many dark traits, as well as sophistication, education, and the power of seduction, which Sir Edward supposes himself to possess. The Byronic hero was in part inspired by the villains of Ann Radcliffe’s gothic novels. Source.

Reminiscent of Henry Crawford's desire to make Fanny Price fall in love with him in Mansfield Park.

Pretty ironic, considering he was railing on other novels earlier in the chapter for having "discordant principles."

Here, we are presented another form of a "fan" in Jane Austen's literature -- the crazy fanboy. Sir Edward is somewhat similar to Catherine in Northanger Abbey, but a whole lot creepier.

Jane Austen directly makes fun of Sir Edward for modelling his behavior after male characters like that of Richardson's.

Sir Edward's passionate praise of the Romantic novel is reminiscent of Marianne's dramatic speeches in Sense and Sensibility. This is slightly ironic considering that Edward's earlier rejection of the novel in favor of works that can be used to better oneself falls more under Sense than Sensibility.

  This chapter establishes familiar character dynamics that might elucidate the trajectory of the personas Austen presents in this unfinished text. The chapter begins with the introduction of Miss Esther Denham and Sir Edward Denham, a scheming sibling pair reminiscent of Mansfield Park’s The Crawfords and Northanger Abbey’s The Thorpes. Austen explicitly establishes the bald aim of the two to obtain wealth and status from advantageous matrimony, a characteristic that similarly mirrors the Crawfords and Thorpes. Sir Edward, in particular, resembles Austen’s past villainous men; throughout the Austen canon, coxcomb-esque behaviors are the cardinal sins of bachelors. Indeed, Willoughby, Wickham, Henry Crawford, Mr. Elton, Thorpe, and Mr. Elliot all receive biting characterizations by Austen, and thus, given the fates of these men in their respective novels, we can predict that Sir Edward is not the male love interest of this story. 
 Sir Edward’s dynamic with, and apparent longing for the affection of, Clara Brereton, additionally reverberate into the Austen canon in a meaningful way. Other Austen works present relationships between gentried men and pseudo-adopted young women; notably, Emma features Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill’s secret engagement and Mansfield Park depict Henry Crawford’s arguably predatory pursuit of Fanny Price. These relationship both demonstrate wealth and class incongruities as interpersonal complications. Further, these dynamics are also characterized by the ignorance of other characters to the details of the relationship. Therefore, we cannot know from this unfinished account of Charlotte’s observations if Clara Brereton is a Fanny Price or a Jane Fairfax; we cannot fully know if the behaviors and dispassion Charlotte Heywood witnesses are evidence of a painful resistance to unwanted advances or red herrings to disguise an intimacy. Since speculation is the nature of this activity, however, it is notable that in both Mansfield Park and Emma, outside perceptions of the aforementioned relationships were incorrect. Therefore, paradoxically, Charlotte’s perception of Clara’s distaste for Sir Edward might in fact evince a returned affection and eventual marriage between the two. 

This suspicion is in reference to Lady Denham thinking Charlotte has a desire to pursue Sir Edward, or that Charlotte may be misinterpreting Sir Edward's behaviour towards her believing he is forming an attachment to her. Lady Denham clearly wants to convey the message that Sir Edward is not available.

Links to common words/themes throughout the annotations