Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T11:51:47.710Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - War and words

from Part I - Themes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2010

Kate McLoughlin
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
Get access

Summary

War literature constantly advertises its own inadequacy. “How can I picture it all? It would take a god to tell the tale,” despairs Homer in the Iliad - and this in what is perhaps the greatest of all representations of war. Homer's disclaimer is an example of the classical rhetorical trope adynaton (in Latin, impossibilia), which can be defined as the expression of “the impossibility of addressing oneself adequately to the topic.” It is easy to suggest why this topos proliferates in war writing - but is it anything other than an expression of (false) modesty? This chapter considers why it is difficult to find words to convey war; why, nevertheless, words must be found, and what happens when war and words are brought together.

Why is it difficult to find words for war?

War is a massive and complex phenomenon. The Second World War lasted six years, ranged over the globe, and killed some fifty million people. War reconfigures nations, displaces populations, devastates land. Difficulties in finding words for all this arise immediately. Here is Shakespeare on the particular problems faced by the theater:

[P]ardon, gentles all,

The flat unraised spirits that hath dared

On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

So great an object. Can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram

Within this wooden O the very casques

That did affright the air at Agincourt?

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • War and words
  • Edited by Kate McLoughlin, University of Glasgow
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to War Writing
  • Online publication: 28 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521895682.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • War and words
  • Edited by Kate McLoughlin, University of Glasgow
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to War Writing
  • Online publication: 28 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521895682.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • War and words
  • Edited by Kate McLoughlin, University of Glasgow
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to War Writing
  • Online publication: 28 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521895682.003
Available formats
×