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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

By
Mary Favret
Edited by
James Chandler
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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).

Keywords

daily readingcloudy battlefieldBritish literaturewomen writerswar painWilliam Cowperwartime fatalitiespost-boy
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of English Romantic Literature , pp. 314 - 334
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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