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However, literary critics have dismissed this body of work as shallow and conventionalized. The literature represents a failure to do justice to the war for which critics have offered a variety of reasons. Daniel Aaron argues that participants in the war were so traumatized that they resorted to formulas and conventions rather than face their own experience. Or, authors were so pressured by a masculine ethos and popular enthusiasm for the war that they conformed to prevailing ideas.(3) Behind the dismissal of Civil War literature there emerges an implicit picture of the war as a destructive event which disillusioned the American people. This was reflected by a transition in nineteenth-century literature from romanticism, broadly defined, to realism. By relying on conventional romantic representations, Civil War authors are seen to have repressed the war experience thereby testifying to its destructiveness and to the actual death of romanticism.
However, I believe that the large and varied body of work coming out of the war has more to offer. Emerging from a liminal position between literary periods, I believe it can challenge the pervasive but--to my mind--shakily supported narrative of a death of romanticism in nineteenth-century literature. On the contrary, I believe Civil War literature offers opportunities to redefine romanticism, a concept which has proven notoriously diffuse; to counter the notion that romanticism ended with the Civil War, thereby recharacterizing this historical event; and to suggest how romanticism contributed to the nationalism emerging from the war.
To focus my study of these questions of which today's paper is a brief excerpt, I have made two founding assumptions. First, I will study romanticism through representations of the military. This seems reasonable since we are talking about a war in which the military had a central role; but there are other reasons. The critical view of the war as frenzied, mindless, and even unnecessary violence implies a related assumption that the military institution is a wholly repressive force stifling individual identity with ideology. However, I believe this is a narrow and simplistic view of the American military at this historical moment. The Union Army was the first large, bureaucratized, and conscripted army in American history. Thus, it brought heterogeneous and disparate culture realms divided by race and class into proximity under the same conditions for the first time in American history. Furthermore, as the beginning of America's military industrial complex, the Union Army, as historians have documented, had nowhere near the level of discipline and uniformity one would expect today.(4) Thus, the very centralizing tendency of the army paradoxically intensified cultural interaction and redefinition rather than brainwashing.
Furthermore, as the first conscripted army in American history, the Union Army occupied a highly ironic position. Seen by contemporaries as the means for preserving the Revolutionary legacy, the Union Army, by its very nature as a standing army, violated a central motive for the Revolution which was to avoid conscription. Thus, the Union soldiers not only found themselves jostling with other types of Americans in the ranks, they found themselves wondering what kind of Americans they were at all by participating in a hierarchical organization. And, I believe this self-consciousness appears as an important sub-text in Civil War literature. Thus, I believe the army was not simply a repressive institution but a site of active cultural ferment whose representations can be used to reconsider the Civil War and the role of romanticism in its structure of feeling.
My second assumption is to study this material through the dialogical theory of Mikhail Bakhtin. His work lends itself to Civil War literature in a variety of ways. Dialogism was developed during another war, the Communist Revolution of 1917, and dialogism was influenced by the war's social upheaval and its mixing of languages; the Civil War presents itself as a similar social context. Secondly, dialogism's description of discourses in terms of stylistic features and implicit ideology prove useful in studying a literary and philosophical orientation such as romanticism. My larger project, then, is to study the representation of the military in terms of ideological discourses in order to define and situate romanticism in this historical era.
Today, I want to give brief examples of this analysis and suggest conclusions that might be drawn by discussing a representative text of Civil War fiction. This text is Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (1867) by John William De Forest. (This novel will be referred to hereafter as Miss Ravenel.) De Forest is one of the few professional authors to see extensive combat service and to write about it. He wrote two works specifically on the war. A Volunteer's Adventures (1946) consists of a compilation of De Forest's journals written during his campaigns. They comprise the most vivid and articulate account of battles and campaign life to emerge from the war. The second, Miss Ravenel is a novel based on the war, and many of its vivid accounts of combat presented through letters, are drawn almost verbatim from A Volunteer's Adventures. Miss Ravenel is generally regarded as the best novel about the war after Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage (1891). William Dean Howells, a friend and correspondent of De Forest, described him as a "realist before realism was named." (5) Critics have acknowledged realistic elements in De Forest's graphic descriptions of combat. However, they have also criticized a failure to fully realize his realistic vision. His battle scenes are hampered by flat characters and a melodramatic plot which, through unlikely events, resolves the plot through a marriage. Thus, despite leading a minority of realistic authors writing about the war, De Forest is recuperated into the critical view of authors who stifled their war literature with conventional apparatus.
I, however, join a handful of critics who attempt to make sense of De Forest's inconsistency as a self-conscious construction rather than a mistake.(6) I believe that the realistic and conventional styles of Miss Ravenel reveal a dialogue between different interpretations of the war that readmits a new sense of romanticism. I wish to sketch this reading by outlining the novels' plot then giving a close reading as an illustration.
The novel's title character, Miss Lily Ravenel is the daughter of a Southern doctor whose loyalty to the Union leads him to move North to Barataria at the war's outset. Barataria with its capitol of New Boston is a clear imitation of Connecticut. Despite Lily Ravenel's ardent loyalty to the South, she attracts the attention of two men, Edward Colburne, a college graduate, and Lieutenant John Carter, a visiting army officer. The intertwined careers of these two men in love and war provide one axis for the novel. As they fall in love with Lily Ravenel, both men find themselves in the same military unit--Colburne becomes a captain in a regiment commanded by Carter.
The careers of the two men exhibit a distinct crossing pattern inthe course of the novel--Carter descends while Colburne rises. Carter, as the dashing soldier, sweeps Lily Ravenel off her feet, marries her before going to war and subsequently has a child with her. But, while splendid on the battlefield, the impulsive, swearing, and hard-drinking Carter is uncontrollable off of it. He runs into debt for which he embezzles army funds and he undertakes an affair with his wife's cousin. Finally, abandoned by his wife and passed over for promotion, he is killed in battle.
Colburne begins as a callow youth commanded by the husband of the woman he loves. However, he rises through the ranks, amassing a respectable service record. After the war, he marries the widowed Lily and becomes a successful lawyer. These contrasting plot lines are commonly identified with De Forest's realistic and sentimentalized tendencies. The vulgar, adulterous, physically overpowering Carter is seen as a vehicle for realism while the long-suffering idealistic Colburne is the work of romanticized convention. Lily Ravenel's conversion from Carter to Colburne parallels her conversion from secession to loyalty. Hence, the novel appears to mingle sentimental love, devotion to God and country, and worldly success in a formulaic manner where romantic conventions are used to avoid the implications of realism. Carter is seen as one of the richest, most interesting characters in Civil War literature while Colburne is "too excessively pallid a creation "to retain the reader's interest or to allow the book to achieve the full scope of its realism.(7)
However, I believe that the opposition between Carter and Colburne has more depth than the simple contrast suggested by the reading above. Rather, the two can be understood as the foci of a dialogue which continually question each other by means of interactions among the discourses used to represent them. A few observations can indicate this before I move to the analysis of passages. First, Colburne genuinely admires and respects Carter for his professionalism and ability. Secondly, Colburne grows through his military experience; however, he does not do so simply by executing the ideals with which he began. On the contrary, he grows bolder, more mature, and more decisive by his exposure to a realm outside his Northeastern idealism. His growth comes about through exposure to people like his subordinate Lieutenant Van Zandt who is continually drunk and to the licentious Carter. What results is not a loss of idealism nor an intolerance but a tempering in which Colburne's idealism toward the country and to his values is matured and improved by exposure to Carter's realism.
Carter, too, is a highly ambiguous character. Originally, a Virginia gentleman, he gives up wealth and position in the Confederate army out of loyalty to the United States. His resulting penury, in combination with his affection for his wife lead him into debt and other misfortunes. But, through it all, his bravery in battle and his treatment of his men are exemplary, and at his loss, the regret from his men, including Colburne, is "genuine and earnest." Thus, Colburne's personal development rests largely on his increasing realism while Carter's failure reveals hidden ideals. Lily Ravenel's second marriage to Colburne hardly maintains formulaic conventions and values. Rather, it is tinged with sadness and painful experience, and embracing Carter's son, young Ravenel Carter, her reunion with Colburne indicates a reconciliation rather than an exclusion of opposites.
The foregoing reading reveals a rough dichotomy between romanticism and realism in terms of Colburne and Carter, convention and objectivity, idealism and immorality while hinting at complexities beneath them. I now wish to formulate a more precise definition of romanticism by looking briefly at a specific passage.
I wish to illustrate the variety of discourses at work in the novel in the shortest possible space. Hence, what follows is a nested narrative, a story within a story presenting a variety of competing discourses in the representation of the military. In the course of the novel Doctor Ravenel visits his city of New Orleans after its recapture by Union forces, and while there, he looks up his friend Edward Colburne who he has not seen for some time. In Colburne's absence, he is met instead by his bizarre subordinate, Lieutenant Van Zandt. [The door] was opened by an officer in the uniform of a second lieutenant, a man of remarkable presence, very dark and saturnine in visage, tall and broad-shouldered and huge-chested, with the limbs of a Heenan and the ringing bass voice of a Susini.(7) He informed the
visitor that Captain Colburne was out, but insisted with an amicable boisterousness upon his entering. He had an elaborate and ostentatious courtesy of manner which puzzled the Doctor, who could not decide whether he was a born-and-bred gentleman or a professional gambler.(8) Van Zandt, a representative of the army, is a heteroglossia, in Bakhtin's terms, combining a number of conflicting discourses. Van Zandt is a continual drunkard with the build of a fearsome and brutish prize fighter. Yet, this figure of debauchery is clothed in the uniform of a second lieutenant, a figure of respectability. Moreover, his drunken, meandering monologue is garnished with unctuous speech and pretensions to gentility to which he keeps adverting with his phrase, "an officer and a gentleman" (115). The whole presentation is highly puzzling to the doctor who doesn't know whether to take him as a gentleman or a con-man and a gambler. This heteroglossia in its emphasis dissolves in laughter Van Zandt's pretensions to being an officer and a gentleman. Yet, the representation is also truly dialogic by also satirizing the watching doctor who is left dumbfounded by this colorful figure.
Yet, as Van Zandt's drunken monologue continues, his character shows unexpected qualities. "I feel bound to tell you how much I admire Captain Colburne, of whom I think I was speaking. . . I would go to the death for him, sir. He is a man, sir, that you can depend on. You know just where to find him. He is a man that you can tie to." (116) Van Zandt's seeming lack of principle discloses a genuine devotion to Colburne as well as Carter that is described in terms of the vertical relationships of the military. The military hierarchy which had been satirized is ironically re animated to portray loyalty and honor.
Van Zandt goes on to present a nested narrative of Colburne and Carter which reveals dialogical interactions between them. Colburne's idealism places him in dire danger through his refusal to drink, and, he is saved by Carter. "Woefully broken up--slow bilious typhoid fever--and wouldn't drink, sir--conscientious against it. 'You must drink, by---! sir,' says the Colonel; 'you must drink and wear woollen shirts.' 'But,' says the Captain, 'if I drink and get well, my men will drink and go to hell.' By the way, those were not his exact words, sir. I am apt to put a little swearing into a story. It's like lemon in a punch. Don't you think so sir?--Where was I? Oh, I remember. 'How can I punish my men says the Captain, 'for doing what I do myself?' 'It's none of their dam business what you do,' says the Colonel. 'If they get drunk and neglect duty thereby, it's your business to punish them. And if you neglect duty, it's my business to punish you. But don't suppose it is any affair of your men. The idea is contrary to regulations, sir.' Those are the opinions of Colonel Carter, sir, an officer, a gentleman, and a philosopher. Nothing but good old Otard brandy and woollen shirts brought the Captain around--woollen shirts and good old Otard brandy with the Soule seal on it. (119-120) With his trademark swearing and vulgarity, Carter bullies, cajoles and orders Colburne to drink. However, these marks of a realistic discourse are turned toward an idealistic purpose whose context puts Carter in a new light. His rough manner does not signify insensitivity or brutishness but its opposite. He genuinely cares for his subordinate which one would not associate with the hierarchical relationships of the military. Moreover, Carter uses a military rationale to express his feelings, telling Colburne it is his responsibility as an officer to regain his health. Thus, the discourses show us how the military organization operates as a structure of consciousness itself, in effect a language. And, here it expresses loyalty, companionship, responsibility in a way to complicate a naive sense of idealism. The trademark regimentation and discipline of the military is also shown in a new light. One of Colburne's scruples is that his drinking will provide a poor example to his men through his role as leader. However, Carter explains that the discipline of the military permits a fine distinction. While imitating Colburne generally, the men must not in this case or face severe punishment. Military discipline, in this particular instance, is shown to serve self-control.
This nested narrative serves to ironize satiric, realistic discourses to revitalize conventions that had been debunked. The military is shown to promote values of discipline, loyalty, principle, and camaraderie. This scene as a whole sheds a new light on the previous satire of the military as a veneer for drunkenness and debauchery. We see that the military can make good on its values but in a fleeting and contingent way. Van Zandt dramatizes the dialogic quality of the military through his role as a narrative frame. We see his realistic behavior thrown into relief by the romantic ideals displayed in his story, but neither side of Van Zandt nor the military at large is a ground for the other. Both are fleeting and contingent in a continual dialogue. From this sketch of the novel, I want to propose conclusions about romanticism that can be pursued in a more extended study of this and other works of Civil War literature. First, I want to make a case for Miss Ravenel and similar works for being much more insightful and self-aware than the perfunctory ideology described by critics. With the aid of Bakhtin, we can see a number of distinct discourses which subvert and ironize each other.
Secondly, given this complex, semiotic field, I believe it is naive and limiting to identify romanticism with the conventions of historical romance, with ideals of military glory, or with other idealistic discourses of sentimental fiction.
It follows, then, from my analysis of representations of the military, that certain forms of romanticism were subverted by ironic and objectified discourses that tally with our understanding of "realism." However, it is equally true that these discourses are ironized in turn to reanimate an idealistic subject position suggestive of romanticism, though not in precisely the same form. Thus, it would be simplistic to say that Civil War literature testifies to the end of romanticism. While it presents an ironic self-awareness that exceeds traditional conventions of romanticism it also demonstrates the movement's adaptiveness and vitality. While dead in some forms, romantic themes of idealism, powerful emotion, and the irrational persist and even gain emphasis through their transformation.
Finally, we can turn these reflections on romanticism to a new understanding of the Civil War. It is less convincing to view it as a monochromatic period of either blind popular ideology or vast disillusionment. Rather, it was a period of cultural ferment and self-consciousness where various social roles and identities were reconsidered by means of various ideological discourses through a reconceptualization of the army. Thus, the military's contribution to nationalism may have been less in the form of a monologic imperialism than the reverse. The army instituted a dialogic personal identity where the individual was clearly defined both with and against the national institution in a continual dialogue.