Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe, de Walter Scott, toca temas de caballeros, torneos, el rey Ricardo (Corazón de León), las cruzadas, Robin Hood y la fragilidad de los judíos en la época.

En vocabulario encontramos of yore y ponemos una foto reclamando a los judíos luchar con los británicos en la Primera Guerra Mundial.

 

Generalidades

Ivanhoe es una novela histórica de Sir Walter Scott, publicada en 1820, y ambientada en la Inglaterra del siglo 12. Esta novela aumentó el interés por el romance y el medievalismo.

Ivanhoe es la historia de una de las familias nobles sajonas en momentos en que la nobleza Inglesa era abrumadoramente Normanda. Sigue al protagonista sajón, Wilfred de Ivanhoe, que pierde el favor de su padre por su lealtad al rey normando, Ricardo I de Inglaterra.

La historia está ambientada en 1194, tras el fracaso de la Tercera Cruzada, cuando muchos de los cruzados regresan a Europa. Se creía que el rey Ricardo, que había sido capturado por el duque de Austria en su camino de regreso, seguía prisionero.

El legendario Robin Hood también es un personaje de la historia, al igual que sus "hombres alegres".

Otros personajes importantes son el padre de Ivanhoe, el intratable Cedric, uno de los pocos señores sajones que sobreviven; los Caballeros Templarios, un número de clérigos; los fieles siervos y el bufón Wamba, cuyas observaciones marcan gran parte de la acción.

El prestamista judío Isaac de York, que es igualmente apasionado de su pueblo y de su hija, Rebecca.

El libro fue escrito y publicado durante un período de creciente lucha por la emancipación de los judíos en Inglaterra, y hay frecuentes referencias a la injusticia contra ellos.

Judío liberado decidido a ayudar en la guerra

Paragraphs

In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster. The remains of this extensive wood are still to be seen at the noble seats of Wentworth, of Warncliffe Park, and around Rotherham. Here haunted of yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley; here were fought many of the most desperate battles during the Civil Wars of the Roses; and here also flourished in ancient times those bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been rendered so popular in English song.

Such being our chief scene, the date of our story refers to a period towards the end of the reign of Richard I., when his return from his long captivity had become an event rather wished than hoped for by his despairing subjects, who were in the meantime subjected to every species of subordinate oppression. The nobles, whose power had become exorbitant during the reign of Stephen, and whom the prudence of Henry the Second had scarce reduced to some degree of subjection to the crown, had now resumed their ancient license in its utmost extent; despising the feeble interference of the English Council of State, fortifying their castles, increasing the number of their dependants, reducing all around them to a state of vassalage, and striving by every means in their power, to place themselves each at the head of such forces as might enable him to make a figure in the national convulsions which appeared to be impending.

The situation of the inferior gentry, or Franklins, as they were called, who, by the law and spirit of the English constitution, were entitled to hold themselves independent of feudal tyranny, became now unusually precarious. If, as was most generally the case, they placed themselves under the protection of any of the petty kings in their vicinity, accepted of feudal offices in his household, or bound themselves by mutual treaties of alliance and protection, to support him in his enterprises, they might indeed purchase temporary repose; but it must be with the sacrifice of that independence which was so dear to every English bosom, and at the certain hazard of being involved as a party in whatever rash expedition the ambition of their protector might lead him to undertake. On the other hand, such and so multiplied were the means of vexation and oppression possessed by the great Barons, that they never wanted the pretext, and seldom the will, to harass and pursue, even to the very edge of destruction, any of their less powerful neighbours, who attempted to separate themselves from their authority, and to trust for their protection, during the dangers of the times, to their own inoffensive conduct, and to the laws of the land.

A circumstance which greatly tended to enhance the tyranny of the nobility, and the sufferings of the inferior classes, arose from the consequences of the Conquest by Duke William of Normandy. Four generations had not sufficed to blend the hostile blood of the Normans and Anglo-Saxons, or to unite, by common language and mutual interests, two hostile races, one of which still felt the elation of triumph, while the other groaned under all the consequences of defeat. The power had been completely placed in the hands of the Norman nobility, by the event of the battle of Hastings, and it had been used, as our histories assure us, with no moderate hand. The whole race of Saxon princes and nobles had been extirpated or disinherited, with few or no exceptions; nor were the numbers great who possessed land in the country of their fathers, even as proprietors of the second, or of yet inferior classes. The royal policy had long been to weaken, by every means, legal or illegal, the strength of a part of the population which was justly considered as nourishing the most inveterate antipathy to their victor. All the monarchs of the Norman race had shown the most marked predilection for their Norman subjects; the laws of the chase, and many others equally unknown to the milder and more free spirit of the Saxon constitution, had been fixed upon the necks of the subjugated inhabitants, to add weight, as it were, to the feudal chains with which they were loaded. At court, and in the castles of the great nobles, where the pomp and state of a court was emulated, Norman-French was the only language employed; in courts of law, the pleadings and judgments were delivered in the same tongue. In short, French was the language of honour, of chivalry, and even of justice, while the far more manly and expressive Anglo-Saxon was abandoned to the use of rustics and hinds, who knew no other. Still, however, the necessary intercourse between the lords of the soil, and those oppressed inferior beings by whom that soil was cultivated, occasioned the gradual formation of a dialect, compounded betwixt the French and the Anglo-Saxon, in which they could render themselves mutually intelligible to each other; and from this necessity arose by degrees the structure of our present English language, in which the speech of the victors and the vanquished have been so happily blended together; and which has since been so richly improved by importations from the classical languages, and from those spoken by the southern nations of Europe… (from the original English classic “Ivanhoe”, chapter 1, by Walter Scott)

Vocabulario

Of Yore: of long ago or former times (used in nostalgic or mock-nostalgic recollection).

"My companions recounted battles of yore".

Para saber

The Battle of Hastings: la batalla decisiva en la que Guillermo el Conquistador derrotó a los Sajones bajo el mando de Harold, dejando a Inglaterra abierta para la conquista normanda.

Recursos en Internet

Para escuchar Ivanhoe, totalmente gratis:

Ivanhoe, Librivox

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Fuentes

Ivanhoe, Wikipedia