ABSTRACT

Writing War in Britain and France, 1370-1854: A History of Emotions brings together leading scholars in medieval, early modern, eighteenth-century, and Romantic studies. The assembled essays trace continuities and changes in the emotional register of war, as it has been mediated by the written record over six centuries.

Through its wide selection of sites of utterance, genres of writing and contexts of publication and reception, Writing War in Britain and France, 1370-1854 analyses the emotional history of war in relation to both the changing nature of conflicts and the changing creative modes in which they have been arrayed and experienced. Each chapter explores how different forms of writing defines war – whether as political violence, civilian suffering, or a theatre of heroism or barbarism – giving war shape and meaning, often retrospectively. The volume is especially interested in how the written production of war as emotional experience occurs within a wider historical range of cultural and social practices. 

Writing War in Britain and France, 1370-1854: A History of Emotions will be of interest to students of the history of emotions, the history of pre-modern war and war literature.

 

chapter 1|22 pages

‘In Form of War’

War and emotional formation in European history

chapter 2|13 pages

Confessing the Emotions of War in the Late Middle Ages

23Le livre du bon messire Jehan le Maingre, dit Bouciquaut

chapter 3|20 pages

Emotion and Medieval ‘Violence’

37The Alliterative Morte Arthure and The Siege of Jerusalem

chapter 6|17 pages

‘Thus of War, a Paradox I Write’

Thomas Dekker and a Londoner’s view of continental war and peace

chapter 7|19 pages

Corresponding Romances

107Henri II and the last campaigns of the Italian Wars

chapter 9|17 pages

‘At Newburn Foord, Where Brave Scots Past the Tine’

Emotions, literature, and the Battle of Newburn 1

chapter 10|19 pages

‘This Humble Monument of Guiltless Blood’

163The emotional landscape of Covenanter monuments 1

chapter 12|17 pages

War and Emotion in the Age of Biedermeier

201The United Service Journal and the military tale

chapter 13|19 pages

‘A Possession for Eternity’

219Thomas De Quincey’s feeling for war