Ibsen

Gasp! Ibsen! giggle.....we have seen divinity and he is Norwegian!

Ivanhoe

It has been a very long time since I first read this. I should have reread it sooner. It may just be the perfect book for hiding in when I am stressed out. I almost wish it were twice as long so I could enjoy it longer. At least it is a divine repeat.
Most of the time reading prefaces is a deeply boring task. This is a highly notable exception. Not only does Scott anticipate the objections that current writers of historical fiction face but he discusses universality. In effect he explains why setting is secondary to theme and what it truly takes to write a book that will be loved.

He who first opens Chaucer, or any other ancient poet, is so much struck with the obsolete spelling, multiplied consonants, and antiquated appearance of the language,that he is apt to lay down the work in despair, as encrusted too deep with the rust of antiquity, to permit his judgment of its merits or tasting its beauties. But if some intelligent and accomplished friend points out to him, that the difficulties by which he is startled are more in appearance than reality, if, by reading aloud to him, or by reducing the ordinary words to the modern orthography, he satisfies his proselyte that only about one-tenth part of the words employed are in fact obsolete, the novice may be easily persuaded to approach the "well of English undefiled" with the certainty that a slender degree of patience will enable him to enjoy both the humor and the pathos with which old Geoffrey delighted the age of Cressy and Poictiers.
To pursue this a little farther. If out neophyte, strong in the new-born love of antiquity, were to undertake to imitate what he had learned to admire, it must be allowed he would act very injudiciously, if he were to select from the glossary the obsolete words which it contains, and employ those exclusive of all phrases and vocables retained in modern days. This was the error of the unfortunate Chatterton. In order to give his language the appearance of antiquity, he rejected every word that was modern, and produced a dialect entirely different from any that had ever been spoken in Great Britain. He who would imitate an ancient language with success, must attend rather to its grammatical character, turn of expression, and mode of arrangement, than labor to collect extraordinary and antiquated terms, which, as I have already averred, do not in ancient authors approach the number of words still in use, though perhaps somewhat altered in sense and spelling, in the proportion of one to ten.
What I have applied to language, is still more justly applicable to sentiments and manners. The passions, the sources from which these must all spring in all their modifications, are generally the same in all ranks and conditions, all countries and ages; and it follows, as a matter of course, that the opinions, habits of thinking, and actions, however influenced by the peculiar state of society, must still, upon the whole, bear a strong resemblance to each other.

Another topic he touches on is the difficulty of writing in a new area after success in something. "The public are, in general, very ready to adopt the opinion, that he who has pleased them in one peculiar mode of composition, is, by means of that very talent, rendered incapable of venturing upon other subjects." I am not certain but I think I have read a paraphrase of that in Tolkien. I am just going to have to dig up that book again and delight in a reread. I really wouldn't mind if it didn't occupy so much time.