Mercenaries in british and american literature, 1790–1830: writing, fighting, and marrying for money

The mercenary of popular imagination disregards patriotic feeling in contracting to serve whatever commander will pay well. Like the slave, he ends up obeying a master with no claim of national, religious, or familial affiliation. His choice to serve an alien master (often by crossing the Atlantic) stands at once for the overindulgence of freedom and the failure to appreciate its value.The mercenary’s presence in Romantic-era literature is historically important, but often neglected. Simpson combines a new approach to Romantic literature with challenging transatlantic comparisons. Mercenaries, he argues, are a neglected but historically significant factor in both the American and European contexts, and their presence in literature offers important critical and comparative insight. Substantial primary research underpins an argument with suggestive metaphorical and symbolic implications traced through a range of writing byCharles Brockden Brown, James Fenimore Cooper, Walter Scott, Jane Austen, Byron and Charlotte Smith.

• ISBN: 978-0-7486-3644-0
• Editorial: Edinburgh University
• Encuadernacion: Cartoné
• Páginas: 240
• Fecha Publicación: 01/06/2010
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés