It has been noted that The Bride of Lammermoor is the most tragic of Scott's novels. When thinking of tragedy as a genre, whether in the Shakespearian mode or the novelistic form, one tends to categorize the work as either a tragedy of fate or of character (Romeo and Juliet is usually classed as an example of the former, while Hamlet, with the hero's indecision as the tragic flaw, as an instance of the latter). This novel, however, can be judged as a tragedy of both fate and character. It seems fated that the families of the lovers, like the Montagues and Capulets, are enemies, that the lovers should meet in a dramatic circumstance (with Edgar saving Lucy and her father from the violent attack of a wild bull), and that the persons surrounding them are torn by ambition, greed, and passions of their own—all of...