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:
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Fuentes
Ivanhoe,
Wikipedia
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