The Military Memoir and Romantic Literary Culture, 1780–1835

Ramsey, Neil

doi:10.4324/9781315238319

Cited by 13 publications

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“…1 Hamilton's book, indeed, went on to inspire a generation of military and naval novelists working in the 1830s and '40s, themselves, like Hamilton, writing in the wake of a burgeoning military literature of reminiscences, memoirs, biographies and tales of war that had achieved widespread commercial success in Britain by the 1830s. 2 Despite the prominence of military writing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, critics have directed little substantive attention to military novels, typically relegating the genre to a militaristic and light-hearted version of the historical novel. 3 War has, it is true, long been recognised as the 'prototypical content' of historical novels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘To Die as a Soldier’: The Vital Romance of the Military Novel

Ramsey¹

2018

J Eighteenth Century Stud

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Critics have generally dismissed the military novel as simply a minor version of the historical novel. This article reassesses the genre by examining what the Quarterly Review saw as the first ‘military novel’, Thomas Hamilton's Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton (1827). It argues that, while his novel is modelled on Scott's historical novels, Hamilton also established an entirely new aesthetics, based on the soldier's suffering body. Reading this aesthetic in relation to a biopolitics of life emerging in the long eighteenth century, the article proposes that the novel constructs a new version of military honour for the modern nation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘To Die as a Soldier’: The Vital Romance of the Military Novel

Ramsey¹

2018

J Eighteenth Century Stud

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“…The contemporary military memoir has its origins in the spiritual revelatory memoirs of the pre-Romantic period, in which accounts of the spiritual transformations brought by war to the soldier-author constituted the most common form within war-writing (Harari, 2008;Ramsey, 2011). Following the Peninsular Wars and Napoleonic Wars (1808-1814), contemporary scholars note a shift in the focus of the military memoir, from those concerned with spiritual transformation, to those more concerned with descriptions of the deprivations endured by the ordinary soldier (Ramsey, 2011). These newer forms of war-writing were criticized as 'unpatriotic accounts' containing 'unjustifiable' criticisms of senior officers; the Duke of Wellington himself was not immune from this critical gaze.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These newer forms of war-writing were criticized as 'unpatriotic accounts' containing 'unjustifiable' criticisms of senior officers; the Duke of Wellington himself was not immune from this critical gaze. The 'critical memoirs' appearing from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the middle of the 1820s were then replaced by the more patriotic and adventurous accounts of the officer class (Ramsey, 2011). While official censorship of the 'critical' accounts of the ordinary soldier by the military or state was not a feature of this period, these accounts were 'censured' in the reviews of them in popular journals of the time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicating War through the Contemporary British Military Memoir: the Censorships of Genre, State, and Self

Woodward

2014

Journal of War & Culture Studies

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This paper is about military memoirs-the published autobiographical reflections of those who have participated in armed conflict-as a mechanism for communication about war. In this paper, we consider the controls exerted by functions of genre, military organizational censorship and self-censorship as influences on the possibilities for the military memoir for communicating war. Drawing on memoirs published about experiences with the British Armed Forces from 1980 to the present and interviews with a sample of authors of memoirs, the paper considers the factors which shape and constrain the accounts these memoirs contain. We look first at the conventions of the genre, considering how authors may or may not accept or reject its established modes and forms, and consider censorship as a capacity of the conventions of the genre. Second, we consider the role of formal institutional censorship undertaken by the Ministry of Defence and by other military institutions in shaping what can and cannot be said within the memoir. Third, we consider the role of authorial self-censorship, and highlight this as a powerful force in shaping the final published narrative. We conclude with observations about the limits of the genre for speaking with veracity about war, and the potential offered by the turn to fiction by memoirists as a means of enabling a less constrained form of communication about their military experiences. As a source of power, the book has also been very much subject to power. The history of writing can hardly be dissociated from the history of censorship, either of the blatant kind exercised directly by the organs of power, or the more insidious kind, self-censorship, when authors or publishers (whose interests may be opposed) themselves anticipate the wishes of outside forces,

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“…The early nineteenth century was a boon period for military memoirists, who produced numerous texts for an eager reading public. 13 The literary style of memoirs has discouraged some historians from using them as sources; however, memoirs are a valuable resource for studies of identity, whose composition speaks to the author's aspirations and desired self-image. 14 British army officers' national identities were multi-layered.…”

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confidence: 99%

British national and patriotic identities in the army officer corps, 1793–1815

Huf

2019

Hist Res

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The relationship between serving in the officer corps during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and identification with the British nation has received little attention from historians. This article examines this relationship, and argues that military service in this period consolidated a ‘British’ national identity within the officer corps, particularly through adherence to the values of politeness and honour. Importantly, this article argues that officers’ patriotic expression evolved during this period. During the seventeen‐nineties, officers equated loyalism with patriotism. Napoleon’s ascent changed this dynamic, as officers incorporated critiques of the government into their patriotic expression during the early to mid eighteen‐hundreds.

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The Military Memoir and Romantic Literary Culture, 1780–1835

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

‘To Die as a Soldier’: The Vital Romance of the Military Novel

‘To Die as a Soldier’: The Vital Romance of the Military Novel

Communicating War through the Contemporary British Military Memoir: the Censorships of Genre, State, and Self

British national and patriotic identities in the army officer corps, 1793–1815

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