Suffering and Sentiment in Romantic Military Art

Book excerpt: In a moving intervention into Romantic-era depictions of the dead and wounded, Philip Shaw's timely study directs our gaze to the neglected figure of the common soldier. He examines a wide range of print and visual media, including paintings, political prose, anti-war poetry, early photographs, and the letters and journals of soldiers and surgeons, uncovering a history of changing attitudes that qualify notions of suffering on and off the battlefield as noble or heroic.