Romanticism and War : A Study of British Romantic Period Writers and the Napoleonic Wars

this Book Is A Study Of War And The Perceptions Of War. It Deals Specifically With The British Romantic Period Writers Who Lived Through The Napoleonic Wars, And The Way In Which Those Wars Affected The Writing Of Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron And Many Of Their Contemporaries. Watson Discusses The Particular Fascination Of Those Wars, And The Way In Which They Affected A Way Of Thinking About War That Lasted Until The Early Twentieth Century. Much attention has been paid to the ways in which British Romantic-period writers responded to the French Revolution. Less attention has been paid to the long wars which followed, from 1792 to 1815. This book discusses the ways in which those wars were preceived by those who lived through them and wrote about them: writers such as Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and others. It is also concerned with the way in which war has been more generally perceived, by writers, moralists and soldiers. Among the writers discussed are William Napier and Carl von Clausewitz, both of whom fought in the Napoleonic wars, and whose writings stand beside those of the poets and novelists, helping to condition ways of thinking about war in general. The perceptions of the Romantic period can be seen to have dominated the thinking about war until the First World War Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-22 Ways of Seeing War....Pages 23-38 1793....Pages 39-51 1793 and after....Pages 52-67 1795–1802....Pages 68-83 The Peace of Amiens and after, 1802–05....Pages 84-107 Poetry and the Army: The War, 1807–08....Pages 108-122 Cintra and Corunna....Pages 123-143 The Last Years....Pages 144-173 Ways of Seeing War: The Poets....Pages 174-196 Ways of Seeing War: The Soldiers....Pages 197-216 Afterwords: De Quincey, Ruskin and Hardy....Pages 217-229 Back Matter....Pages 230-254 This volume is a study of war and the perceptions of war. It deals specifically with the British Romantic period writers who lived through the Napoleonic wars, and the way in which those wars affected the writing of Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron and many of their contemporaries In The Deserted Village (1770), Goldsmith sketched a portrait of an old soldier, presumably a victim of the Seven Years' War from 1756 to 1753: The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,