The literary movements of the early 19th century were undeniably, at least to some extent, defined by a backdrop of wartime context. It was a time not only caught up in the midst of the Napoleonic War, but also still affected by the aftermath of the American Revolution. Some texts of the time offer pertinent and explicit commentary on the war; Childe Harold's Pilgrimage[1] by Lord Byron and Waverley[2] by Walter Scott are key examples. The former offers an account of personal reflection on the war while the latter focuses on a historical conflict from the mid-18th century. However, alongside these more obvious treatments of war, there are others which, although initially appearing largely unaffected by these conflicts, are in fact deeply steeped in wartime subtext. Jane Austen's novels, namely Pride and Prejudice[3] and Mansfield Park[4], serve as key examples of such novels, as they focus on characters who maintain separation from disintegration, but are repeatedly unable to escape the permeating ripples of war that surrounds them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayOne of the most obvious depictions of war in early 19th-century literature appears in Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, written in a time period that spanned the latter part of the Napoleonic War and its aftermath. Byron's most obvious comment on war throughout the poem is one that denounces the glorification of battle in favor of darker allusions to its horror. Agustin Coletes-Blanco aligns himself with this view when he suggests that “Child Harold was an avowedly anti-war poem that denounced the absurdity of all conflicts, and in this sense it was revolutionary: it created an uncomfortable dissonance at odds with what was already a large corpus of poems on the War of Independence categorized as sharing and promoting, almost unanimously, the position of the establishment”[5]. Indeed, Byron continually alludes to the cost of victory, and seems each time to decide that this cost is substantially greater than its value. The seventeenth stanza of the third canto opens with a line borrowed from Juvenal's tenth satire: "Stop, because your step is on the dust of an Empire!"[6]. The “Empire” in question initially seems to allude to one of the great ancient empires of Rome or Greece, due to its current “dust” status. However, the “Empire” referred to is actually that of Napoleon Bonaparte, with this “dust” created only a short time before as this particular stanza was written just a year after the final end of the Napoleonic War at the Battle of Waterloo . In creating this confusion, Byron refuses to recognize any distinction between the conflicts of his present and any other conflict in the history of man. The absurdity that Coletes-Blanco speaks of is particularly evident here, as the “step” of Britain's victorious march centers on the metaphorical “dust” that alludes to the destruction of a once great and now destroyed empire. Byron uses the image of flowing blood; the first canto refers to a “bloody stream”[7] as the narrator passes from Portugal to Spain. The stream in question alludes to the Guadiana river, whose current connects the Iberian peninsula to the Atlantic Ocean, which in turn opens connections with Great Britain, America and France. This is significant, as Byron chooses a body of water that is not only the site of a historical battle, but which also serves as a geographical link to the major belligerents of his present. The bonds forged byByron goes deeper than geography as the continuity and repetition of the river's movement alludes to the passage of time, while blood symbolizes the violence of armed conflict. Subsequently Byron suggests that the “Moor and the Knight”[8] who once marched on the Iberian Peninsula have much in common with Napoleonic and British soldiers[9]. The implication here is that wartime technology may evolve, with the mounted “Knight” giving way to the rifle-wielding soldier, but the universal spirit of conflict within humankind persists. In keeping with the prevailing anti-war sentiments that play out throughout the poem, the “bloody” nature of Byron's imagery ensures that his past and present connections are not read as glorious, but instead read as tragic. Another of the most obvious treatments of war and conflict within early 19th century literature occurs in Walter Scott's Waverly.[10] On the surface, it is a historical novel centered on the Jacobite rising of 1745, a conflict that occurred more than half a decade before the publication of Scott's novel. In Waverley, Scott offers commentary on this particular conflict using his eponymous hero, who serves as a vehicle for his contemplations. Indeed, Waverley is a man who experiences both warring groups firsthand and "falteres" between their causes. His loyalty to the government and to his Whig father is contrasted by his sympathies for the Jacobite cause instilled in him by his uncle. Therefore, Edward Waverley is the ideal character through which to discuss issues such as conflict and tolerance in relation to the Jacobite rising. However, although Scott's novel directly portrays a conflict from the past, it can be argued that there is a certain degree of affiliation between the wars of Waverley's historical setting and the wars of Waverly's present. Indeed, Scott's decision to depict a past conflict during a present conflict is certainly significant; to examine the novel through this lens is to incorporate a much broader scope of analysis. When read in light of this notion, Scott's commentary on the war throughout Waverley is imbued with much deeper suggestions regarding human conflict in general, rather than simply representing what happened between the Jacobites and the Hanoverian government. In this sense, Scott uses the past as a means through which to examine and comment on the present. Crucially, Britain at the time of Waverley's publication was not simply in a state of war, but was rather scarred by the effects of multiple conflicts with the rise of Napoleon allowing little time to recover from the American Revolution of the late 18th century. The choice of the Jacobite rising as the target of this critique is itself remarkable. Taking place in the mid-eighteenth century, it was earlier enough to be considered a historical subject, without being so earlier as to be rendered unreliable to early nineteenth-century audiences. According to Georg Lukacs: “If experiences like these are linked to the awareness that similar upheavals are taking place all over the world, this must enormously strengthen first and foremost the feeling that there is such a thing as history, that it is an uninterrupted process of development.” changes and, finally, which directly affects the life of each individual".[11] The implication of Lukác's suggestion is that the relatively short space between the Jacobite Revolt portrayed in the novel and the Napoleonic Wars of the current novels along with the American Revolution, colors the period as one of multiple, interconnected conflicts that together created a profound movement of world change. The novel's alternative title, Tis SixtyYears Since, reinforces this notion, as it references the present in relation to this near past and suggests that events set in motion sixty years earlier are still in motion at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Waverley is, in its most obvious analysis, a novel that uses a war that occurred in its recent history as a case study for all aspects of war in general. It is neither entirely anti-war nor entirely pro-war, but rather an exploration of both sides. Edward Waverley's eventual pardon highlights the senselessness of organized conflict and brings Scott somewhat in line with Byron's negative attitude towards war; Mac-Ivor, as a "foreigner", is sentenced to death while Waverley is fully pardoned despite pursuing the same efforts. It could be argued that this acts as a commentary intended to denounce the war, as inherent prejudices against outsiders masquerade as the genuine pursuit of ideological intentions. In this sense, Waverley can be read as a lesson in the practice of tolerance as an alternative to conflict. However, this negativity is conveyed alongside a more subtle but prevalent sense of hope, which becomes evident during the aforementioned practice of using the setting's past as a means through which to examine the novel's present. Waverley depicts Britain as a divided nation, a depiction that accurately represents the nation's history. However, the conflicts across Britain that appear in Scott's novel had healed by the time of its publication, with Britain standing as a united nation against Napoleon's forces. Subsequently, the hypothesis emerges that the conflict can be completely overcome, perhaps leaving behind a stronger nation. The final defeat of the Jacobite cause, both in historical fact and in Scott's narrative, signals the reunification of Great Britain under Hanoverian rule; this unified Britain would eventually achieve victory in the Napoleonic Wars, an event that defined the early 19th century. Waverley's forgiveness, along with her marriage to the peaceful and reserved Rose as opposed to the passionate revolutionary Flora, hints at a newfound cooperation arising from the shadow of war. Indeed, Rose possesses the ability to compromise that Flora so lacks. This notion is at odds with the absurd nature of war conveyed in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, as it is shown to have a more positive outcome than simply reducing each other to "dust." Lukacs returns to the previously mentioned idea of ​​conflict surpassing time and place in its adherence to the consistency of human nature, but in relation to Waverley as opposed to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. However, he suggests that history and humanity are fundamentally intertwined rather than one factor dominating the other, as he argues that “this is not an otherworldly destiny separate from men; it is the complex interaction of concrete historical circumstances in their process of transformation, in their interaction with concrete human beings, who grew up in these circumstances, were influenced by them very differently and who act individually according to their personal passions” [12]. From this it can be deduced that for Lukacs some events in history, and more specifically war, are phenomena from which it is not possible to separate oneself as long as humanity's responses to particular circumstances do not deviate from inciting conflict. Among Scott and Byron's comments on Considering the Wider Scope of War, one can see that both subscribe to what is perhaps the most significant deviation of the early literary movementof the 19th century in its relation to the theme of war: the growing tendency to describe the impact of wartime disruption on the individual. Neil Ramsey comments on this transition by stating that “Combined with the emergence of sentimental literature in the late eighteenth century, with its interest in the inner experience of ordinary people, a new kind of historical sensibility was taking shape. History was no longer seen simply as the deeds of great men, but was defined as something in which ordinary individuals could participate”[13]. The adherence to this transition is of a more evident nature in Byron's text, right down to the chosen title. Indeed, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage implements the main character's individual identification by name, while simultaneously referencing a physical journey of personal and spiritual development. Using a narrative that is not only first-person, but delivered as a direct product of the narrator's thoughts and feelings, Byron's poetry appears as a kind of journalistic travelogue. Consequently, the entire text revolves around the price of national conflict paid by one man, as he tries to escape the shadow of war through the practice of travel. It is often suggested that the character of Childe Harold serves as a proxy for Byron himself; this notion intensifies the theme of war and the individual as he publicly pushes his personal thoughts on war at a time of substantial national conflict. Simon Bainbridge suggests that the transmission of the significant individual is achieved through Byron's use of a further elegiac verse, added to the first canto during his revision and dedicated to his late friend John Wingfield. According to Bainbridge, "In his elegy for Wingfield, Byron reclaims the [elegiac] form from its uses for 'the boasted slain,' emphasizing the effect of an individual loss and an act of remembrance on the anonymous tributes of official culture"[14] . Interestingly, John Wingfield was not a wartime casualty, but rather succumbed to a fever shortly before Byron's completion of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. It is therefore tempting to argue that Byron's dedication to it may be subject to less relevance to the individual's treatment in relation to war. However, its relevance arises from reflection on personal loss and its juxtaposition to the masses of wartime losses. The latter can, in line with Bainbridge's vision, become anonymous due to its scale. By implying his elegy for Wingfield, Byron effectively reminds the reader of the significance of each of those human losses and their equal importance to those that occurred outside of a war context. This sense of a shift towards the individual at war can also be observed in Waverley. Here the focus is certainly more subtle, but this diminished obviousness does not make it absent at all. George Lukacs, in his notable critique of Walter Scott's rendering of the historical novel, argues that “What matters in the historical novel is not the retelling of great historical events, but the poetic awakening of the people who played a part in those events . What matters is reliving the social and human motivations that led men to think, feel and act as they did in historical reality"[15]. Indeed, Scott's focus on the individual figure in the context of war encompasses the implications of moral implications. In Scott's vision, it presents a kind of wartime horror that, while smaller in scale, is perhaps more profoundly profound than a depiction of mass horror; the psychological impact on the individual. Kathryn Sutherland subscribes to this idea as she insists that “Afterall the excuses and justifications, Waverley has blood on her hands. Among the most powerful scenes in the novel are those that address the moral enormity of civil conflict on an individual level”[16]. Scott further explores these individual moral implications of war as he considers soldiers' struggle to reconcile their personal beliefs with the exigencies of duty. The surname of the eponymous protagonist Waverley hints at her redirection of loyalty. Indeed, as discussed above, there is an internal conflict between his loyalty to the government and his sympathy for the Jacobite cause. Having grown up under the influence of his uncle's Jacobin loyalties, his reluctance to help put down their revolt seems inevitable. His decision to abandon his post in the Hanoverian army and submit to the opposition raises important questions regarding the motivations and beliefs of the individual soldier. Scott seems to suggest that the collective ambitions of a belligerent nation are not necessarily related to those of each enlisted man, and highlights the difficulties this poses for an individual who must betray one or another side of his identity. As Scott traces Waverley's journey, there is a particular focus on its emotional as opposed to ideological motivations, mirroring the personal "pilgrimage" that Childe Harold embarks on in Byron's poem. Of course, Waverley goes on her own journey where her beliefs are explored and her loyalties are tested. As he becomes familiar with the ways of the Jacobites and the rugged beauty of the Highlands, his belief system adapts in a way that supersedes the official view of his nation. Byron and Scott, placing their literary worlds in the context of national unrest, much of the literature of the early 19th century was much more interested in the insular lives of civilians than the theme of war. Jane Austen's works may seem to firmly encapsulate this notion, as her novels have been widely accused of lacking awareness of the damaging nationwide effects of the wars that occurred consecutively in that time period. Indeed, the settings of his novels revolve around landed gentry, romance and unspoiled rural communities; it's an imagination that can be seen as a little out of touch with reality. However, this very absence of “reality” is what hints at the period of conflict from which Austen's novels emerged; it can be argued that they offer a form of literary escape in reaction to traumatic events. Indeed, when juxtaposed with the disillusionment and uncertainty of the American Revolution, the settings of Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park offer a refreshingly distant image of the hardships of early 19th century society. This is not to say that military affairs are completely ignored, but they are often portrayed in an idealistic and romantic way. Pride and Prejudice embodies this type of portrayal, as the female characters Lydia, Mrs. Bennett, and Kitty all show an open attraction to soldiers; in this sense the soldier appears above all as a romantic figure and an object of desire. This is evident when Austen describes Lydia's imagination of a military camp: "she saw all the glories of the camp - its tents spread out in beautiful uniformity of lines, crowded with young and gay, and dazzling with scarlet" [17] . Here, the figure of the soldier is undeniably masked as all signs of battle weariness and trauma are swallowed up by his vision of a perfectly romantic and regimental "hero". However, although Austen's texts present a significant degree of this whitewashingliterary, even more negative treatments of the themes of war and conflict manage to penetrate its insular environments. They do so in a multitude of subtly noticeable ways, as the ripples of conflict reach even the most disconnected rural communities. Robert Morrison disputes the concept of what Kaelyn Caldwell calls a “pastoral peace backdrop”[18], as he argues that “Austen is an author of remarkable scope and force who addressed some of the central conflicts of her age, and that in Pride and Prejudice combines parochial concerns and the complexities of courtship with an incisive and in-depth response to a range of revolutionary anxieties and pressure points”[19]. Imagining the more indirect shock waves of war, Austen pays subtle but careful attention to the individual; in this sense it aligns with the works of Byron and Scott. Roberts highlights the individual impact of the Napoleonic War on Fanny Price, the heroine of Mansfield Park, as he states that "This background of darkness is the condition which leads to Fanny's departure for Mansfield Park, and helps to explain the pale, shy, shy and sad girl who appeared on her aunt's estate”[20]. In fact, Fanny's father's serious injury during his military service constitutes the main cause of the Price family's difficulties; this, in turn, is the main contributor to the Fanny's mother's decision to send her to be raised by her wealthier relatives in Mansfield Park This decision dramatically changes the course of Fanny's future, and subsequently, the hypothesis emerges that the war has a significant impact on every individual, regardless of whether. whether or not he experiences it firsthand, recalling Ramsey's comment on the "interest in the interior experience of ordinary people"[21] which contributed to shaping the literature of the early nineteenth century. Fanny's brother William, being the most important of those characters who actively participated in the battle, serves as the novel's main source of war influence. However, the novel only divulges what William offers in his interpretation of his experiences, and these are largely glorified as they are delivered in the form of adventure tales. It is only by connecting the dots of Fanny's backstory that the impact of the war on her situation becomes apparent. Interestingly, his individual war story has much more real basis than William's, yet it is never explicitly outlined. This may imply that the previously mentioned “anonymized tributes of official culture”[22] that Bainbridge speaks of, such as William's glorified war stories, must be ignored in order to recognize each individual's often overlooked participations in the war. .While the theme of war is certainly prominent in Austen's work, her primary focus falls on an alternative form of conflict: personal conflict. This is predominantly conveyed through the characters of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy who become entangled in their own war due to their contrasting personalities. When read in light of the novel's wartime backdrop, this depiction of personal conflict takes on greater significance as it appears to interact with Austen's commentary on war. Indeed, Darcy and Elizabeth possess opposing values, and just like the belligerent nations of any war, this becomes a source of active conflict. Perhaps Austen is trying to convey the sense that predisposition to conflict is rooted in human nature and, from this perspective, war has little distinction from any other conflict event, except scale. The eventual union of the rival protagonists can be seen to contain a subtle message regarding the war: the differences, when integrated with thetolerance, can lead to something bigger than war. It can be assumed that Darcy and Elizabeth do not overcome their conflict and then fall in love, but rather fall in love as a result of this conflict. Jibesh Bhattacharyya highlights this sense of unifying conflict as he states that “It is interesting to note that Darcy and Elizabeth become attracted to each other almost as soon as the conflict between pride and prejudice begins… it is this conflict or psychological tension that leads the way "to their final union” [23]. For Bhattacharyya, Austen's conflict is more than just a source of attraction, but also serves as a means of honing character, supplementing character deficiencies and counterbalancing unfavorable traits. Indeed, he suggests that “Darcy's gentlemanly qualities, civilized manners, and warmth of love overcome Elizabeth's prejudice against him. And Darcy's pride is also humbled by Elizabeth's strength of character, intelligence and personality”[24]. Therefore, parallels can be drawn with Waverley and the aforementioned suggestion of the unifying nature of conflict and, together, Austen and Scott discuss this notion with respect to two different conflicts on two opposing scales: national and personal. A persistent theme throughout the works of Austen, Byron, and Scott is the importance of art and the creative mind in response to both wartime and personal conflict. Warren Roberts consolidates the aforementioned ideas about wartime selfhood within Mansfield Park, with this idea that the creative mind can serve as a medium through which to express that which cannot be expressed directly: the reality of war. He states that “When William returned to England on leave he brought war stories to the insular world of Mansfield Park. In developing this part of the novel Austen focused not on the war, but on the responses of the various characters to William's stories”[25 ]. Indeed, it is interesting to note that William's stories are an example of a fiction within another fiction, with both layers possessing a real-life Napoleonic War backdrop. In many ways, they are a continuation of Austen's tendency to gloss over the reality of this war and, in a broader context, war in general. William's stories of his time in the Navy are adventurous and elicit a jealous response in Henry, who did not experience the war firsthand. In line with Roberts' suggestion, reactions such as these are at odds with the more expected responses of pity or horror. Although William's stories are reminiscent of Lydia's romantic view of the army in Pride and Prejudice, the former can be attributed to simple naivety, while William, as a firsthand participant in the war effort, appears to rewrite his own experiences. Therefore, creative narrative appears as a kind of healing mechanism, with William being able to communicate his war experiences without having to relive the harsh truths of them. The importance of creativity as a means of healing and expression can also be observed in Waverley. Sutherland summarizes this concept by stating that “for those who survive the battle, art can be part of the cure”[26]. The “cure” for Waverley comes in the form of a “lively painting”[27] that appears in her house towards the end of the novel is a different medium of creativity than William Price's war stories, but their natures are aligned . Indeed, Fergus McIvor and Waverley appear side by side, against the backdrop of the rugged natural beauty of the Highlands; it may not be complete fiction, but it is certainly selective. With the execution of McIvor and the suppression of the Jacobite Rebellion shortly before the painting's unveiling, Waverley's selection of these whitewashed relics is particularlyconspicuous. Unlike William, he has much more to repress than the memory of the battle, as he must carry the burden of his own forgiveness where his former allies received no such leniency. Sutherland supports this use of art as a means to “bridge the terrible gap between soldier and civilian”[28], as both Waverley and William use creative representations, rather than hard facts, to communicate their experiences. However, he also recognizes that the Waverley painting can bridge the gap, but does so in a misleading, even immoral way. According to Bainbridge, the importance of art in war is also emphasized by Byron in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, as he suggests that the final elegiac stanzas of the first canto “anticipate Byron's later emphasis on elegy as a mode that can give meaning to war. they also reveal an awakening to the role that poetry and creative forces could play in response to the loss of war”[29]. Indeed, Byron makes no attempt to hide the brutality of war; as discussed above, it emphasizes this throughout. However, the "useless pain"[30] is accompanied and contrasted by the "Fantasy"[31] of poetic imagination, as a means through which to express and give meaning to the loss. In conclusion, the themes of war and conflict are so crucial in early nineteenth-century literature that their treatment can be observed even in those texts that refrain from dealing with them directly. War forms the central backdrop of Waverley and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; the former traces a character's assimilation to armed conflict, while the latter recounts the narrator's attempts to escape its shockwaves. In this sense, they are a clear product of a time period characterized by wartime turmoil and are examples of the most clearly evident manifestations of this turmoil within the literary movements of the period. However, reading Jane Austen's texts provides a case study for those early 19th-century literary works that do not offer explicit commentary on warfare, as her settings initially appear to be particularly uncontaminated by the effects of larger current events. On the contrary, from this reading one can actually deduce that, reflecting the novels' present-day reality, war and national conflict saturate much more than a nation's army; they manifest themselves in the ordinary lives of its people and in the arts produced by these people. These reflections are subtle, but not absent, as the war affects the characters in indirect but fundamental ways, and commentary on the war appears in the form of allusions and subtext. Notably, conflict is directly depicted throughout Austen's works on a personal rather than national scale. When considered in light of Lukacs's focus on the significance of human nature in the formation of history and, more specifically, in its wars, the treatment of "ordinary conflict" appears to convey ideas about war by generalizing the human disposition towards belligerence. Bibliography Austen, Jane. Pride and prejudice. New York: Enhanced Media Publishing, 2016. Kindle edition. Austen, Jane. Mansfield Park. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Kindle edition. Bainbridge, Simon. British Poetry and the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: Visions of Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Bhattacharyya, Jibesh. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2015.Byron, George Gordon. Child Harold's Pilgrimage. London: Heraklion Press, 2013. Kindle edition. Caldwell, Kaelyn. How to Talk Like Jane Austen and Live Like Elizabeth Bennett: Your Guide to Livelier Speech and a More Beautiful Lifestyle. Pennsauken: BookBaby, 2013. Coletes-Blanco, Agustin. "Byron and the 'Spanish Patriots': the. [11]