Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part I The Ends of Enlightenment
- Part II Geographies: The Scenes of Literary Life
- 5 London in the 1790s
- 6 Edinburgh and Lowland Scotland
- 7 Romantic Ireland: 1750–1845
- 8 France, Germany, America
- 9 The ‘warm south’
- 10 Country matters
- 11 Romanticism and the wider world: poetry, travel literature and empire
- 12 The homes of England
- 13 Writing, reading and the scenes of war
- 14 Regency London
- Part III Histories: Writing in the New Movements
- Part IV The Ends of Romanticism
- Chronology
- Bibliographies
- Index
- 1 A New Pocket Map of the Cities of London and Westminster; with the Borough of Southwark, Comprehending the new Buildings and other Alterations, 3rd edn (London: William Faden, 1790).">
- References
13 - Writing, reading and the scenes of war
from Part II - Geographies: The Scenes of Literary Life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2009
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Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part I The Ends of Enlightenment
- Part II Geographies: The Scenes of Literary Life
- 5 London in the 1790s
- 6 Edinburgh and Lowland Scotland
- 7 Romantic Ireland: 1750–1845
- 8 France, Germany, America
- 9 The ‘warm south’
- 10 Country matters
- 11 Romanticism and the wider world: poetry, travel literature and empire
- 12 The homes of England
- 13 Writing, reading and the scenes of war
- 14 Regency London
- Part III Histories: Writing in the New Movements
- Part IV The Ends of Romanticism
- Chronology
- Bibliographies
- Index
- 1 A New Pocket Map of the Cities of London and Westminster; with the Borough of Southwark, Comprehending the new Buildings and other Alterations, 3rd edn (London: William Faden, 1790).">
- References
Summary
To understand how war found its place in British literature in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, we might follow William Cowper’s lead when, in The Task (1785) he organizes the scene of war around the figure of the post-boy.
Hark! ’Tis the twanging horn! O’er yonder bridge …
He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
With spatter’d boots, strapp’d waist, and frozen locks,
News from all nations lumb’ring at his back.
True to his charge the close-pack’d load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destin’d inn,
And having dropp’d the expected bag – pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some ….
The arrival of the post-boy (never named, but ever recognizable) opens Cowper’s meditations in Book IV, ‘The Winter Evening’, where, half-convincingly, the poet cobbles out of ‘Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness’ and ‘sweet oblivion’ a rural retreat from hostile weather and imperial hostilities (lines 140; 250). The arrival of the post-boy, however, daily disrupts Cowper’s efforts to represent war retrospectively: ‘Is India free?’ he asks, prompted by seeing the mailbag; ‘And does she wear her plumed / And jewelled turban with a smile of peace, / Or do we grind her still?’ (lines 28–30).
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- The Cambridge History of English Romantic Literature , pp. 314 - 334Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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