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1 results

  • Chapter 11 - Christian Heroism

  • Edited by Gail Marshall, University of Reading
  • Book:
    Nineteenth-Century Literature in Transition: The 1850s
    Published online:
    02 January 2025
    Print publication:
    16 January 2025, pp 250-272

  • Summary

    Elisabeth Jay focusses on the Crimea and asks how Christianity managed to re-embrace the soldier hero within an imaginary which, in the long years of European peace following 1815, had privileged martyrdom or domestic self-sacrifice as types of the heroic. The religious upheavals in the decades preceding 1850, leading to famous secessions from the established Church, simultaneously fostered a sense of persecution and a rancorously bellicose rhetoric. The Crimean War offered a new focus for an already widespread cultural debate about the nature of heroism, while the need to present the military life as compatible with a Christian calling afforded a fresh arena for the warring religious factions to argue their case. The religious dimension needs to be factored into the modern debate about masculinity and the forging pressures of war