1913 saw the release of not one but two adaptions of Ivanhoe. Given its enduring popularity and influence, it should be no surprise that the film industry, with its insatiable hunger for source material and borrowed glamour, had come knocking upon Ivanhoe’s door in its formative years. Scott’s highly curated vision of the medieval period and chivalric culture presented the Victorians with a gilded mirror that reflected their own preoccupations with morality and virtue. The novel, originally published in three volumes in the year 1819, was wildly popular amongst contemporary audiences, acting as the spring broad which launched the Victorians’ enduring obsession with all things medieval. The enduring charm and appeal of Ivanhoe lie in the richness and vividness with which it paints its escapist setting, breathing life into an emotively archaic world of fluttering banners and courting lovers. It is also the work which teased Robin Hood from his refuge amongst compilations of half-forgotten English ballads and folk songs and placed him centre as a literary and cultural hero. It is a tale of mysterious black knights and the spectacular pageantry of tournaments, of odious usurpers and good kings. It was a novel of fair, golden-hearted noble maidens and the dashing knights ready to die for their protection and honour. So many of the tropes, motifs and stylistic choices that the modern general public associate with the medieval period and medievalism ultimately originates from Ivanhoe and its immediate imitators.
Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe is probably the single most influential and celebrated historical novel of the nineteenth century. Taking a look back at the 1952 classic movie, Ivanhoe.
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