Arms and the Imagination

Essays on War, Politics, and Anglophone Culture

Robert C Gordon

• Publisher: Hamilton Books
• Year: 2009
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780761841944
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

From the time of John Milton to that of William Blake, the literature of Britain absorbed the impact of two major military developments. In the early modern era, the military revolution strove to establish permanent armies under state discipline and, in England, the resistance to this development exhibited in the controversy over standing armies. In this penetrating and highly original study, Gordon demonstrates that military debate, encouraged by Britain's semi-secure insular situation, had a remarkable impact on the British imagination and its narratives. Affected were structure and closure; character evaluation; heroic and mock-heroic styles; attitudes toward love and marriage; and the roles of locality and environment in the shaping of the national and personal character. More remarkable still, these effects signaled the emergence of a civilian consciousness that still influences our literary preference and expectations.

Table of contents

• Illustration Credits
• Acknowledgments
• Author’s Introduction
• Chapter One Soldiers and the Dream of Control
• Chapter Two John Milton’s War in Heaven
• Chapter Three King, Warrior, Poet: The Theatre of Corneille and Racine
• Chapter Four Orrery, Dryden, and the Unachieved Hero
• Chapter Five Jonathan Swift and the Science of War
• Chapter Six Calliope among the Civilians: Pope’s Mock-heroic England
• Chapter Seven Cincinnatus Recalled
• Chapter Eight Central Intelligence and Social Disorder: Henry Fielding’s Theatre of Violence
• Chapter Nine Heroism, Civilian and Military: The Grandison-Shandy Antithesis
• Chapter Ten Wordsworth and the Roots of Power
• Chapter Eleven Scott and the Taming of the Sword
• Chapter Twelve Apocalypse Improvised: The Prophecies of William Blake
• Conclusions Political, Military, and Literary