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‘A Possession for Eternity’ : Thomas De Quincey’s feeling for war
Champion, Michael Stanyon, Miranda
Champion, Michael
Stanyon, Miranda
Abstract
This chapter aims to suggest the deep classical history of Romantic feelings about war. It examines Thomas De Quincey’s feelings for war writing through his engagement with Thucydides. De Quincey drew on contemporary reception of Thucydides to set up and undermine contrasts between empirical, scientific, ordered, universal and detached history, and its converse: war writing which is subjective, rhetorical, disruptive, particular and overtly emotional. The complexity of the early modern reception of Thucydides is clear in method. The reception tradition could be understood as setting Thucydides the detached scientist against Thucydides the sublime, emotional artist. Thucydides was a name to conjure with in debates about historiographical form and style, the value of democracy and history, the connections between war and civilisation, and relationships between nations. De Quincey’s approach to anecdotes and cases responds to a complex Romantic era body of writing. Anecdote can be seen as a wayward genre, and it is often self-consciously digressive in De Quincey’s writings.
Keywords
Thomas De Quincey, war in literature, Thucydides, Romanticism, historiography, early modern history
Date
2018
Type
Book chapter
Journal
Book
Writing war in Britain and France, 1370-1854 : A history of emotions
Volume
Issue
Page Range
219-237
Article Number
ACU Department
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled