E-Book Overview
The Language of War examines the relationship between language and violence, focusing on American literature from the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. James Dawes proceeds by developing two primary questions: How does the strategic violence of war affect literary, legal, and philosophical representations? And, in turn, how do such representations affect the reception and initiation of violence itself? Authors and texts of central importance in this far-reaching study range from Louisa May Alcott and William James to William Faulkner, the Geneva Conventions, and contemporary American organizational sociology and language theory. The consensus approach in literary studies over the past twenty years has been to treat language as an extension of violence. The idea that there might be an inverse relation between language and violence, says Dawes, has all too rarely influenced the dominant voices in literary studies today. This is an ambitious project that not only makes a serious contribution to American literary history, but also challenges some of the leading theoretical assumptions of our day.
E-Book Content
The Language of War
The Language of War
LIT ER AT U R E A N D C U LT U R E I N T H E U . S . F R OM T H E CIV IL WA R T H R O U G H WOR LD WAR II
J AME S DAWES
H ARVARD UNIVER SIT Y PR ESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England
2002
Copyright © 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dawes, James, 1969– The language of war : literature and culture in the U.S. from the Civil War through World War II / James Dawes. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-674-00648-8 1. American literature—20th century—History and criticism. 2. War in literature. 3. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Literature and the war. 4. American literature—19th century—History and criticism. 5. United States — History, Military—Historiography. 6. English language—Social aspects—United States. 7. Language and culture—United States—History. 8. World War, 1914– 1918—Literature and the war. 9. World War, 1939–1945—Literature and the war. 10. Violence—United States—Historiography. 11. Violence in literature. I. Title. PS228.W37 D38 2002 810.9⬘358—dc21
2001043085
Contents
Acknowledgments
vii
Introduction. Language and Violence: The Civil War and Literary and Cultural Theory 1 2 3
Counting on the Battlefield: Literature and Philosophy after the Civil War Care and Creation: The Anglo-American Modernists
1 24
69
Freedom, Luck, and Catastrophe: Ernest Hemingway, John Dewey, and Immanuel Kant
107
4
Trauma and the Structure of Social Norms: Literature and Theory between the Wars 131
5
Language, Violence, and Bureaucracy: William Faulkner, Joseph Heller, and Organizational Sociology 157
6
Total War, Anomie, and Human Rights Law Notes
221
Index
301
192
Acknowledgments
Many thanks are owed to Harvard University’s English Department, the Program in Ethics and the Professions, and the Society of Fellows. I am grateful to all those who have, in ways small and large, given help to me along the way: Daniel Aaron, Arthur Applbaum, Sacvan Bercovitch, Philip Fisher, Danny Fox, Geoffrey Harpham, Yunte Huang, Erin Kelly, Martha Minow, Diana Morse, Patrick O’Malley, Barbara Rodriguez, Miryam Sas, Tamar Schapiro, Werner Sollors, Richard Weisberg, James Willis, the faculty and staff of Quincy House, and the outstanding reference librarians at Widener Library. Thanks also to Dan Constanda, Merrick Hoben, Trish Hofmann, Juliet Osborne, and my little father a