Project

Enlightenment at war. Epic poetry, the citizen and discursive bridges to the military (1740-1800)

Code

3E016413

Duration

01 October 2013 → 30 September 2016

Funding

Regional and community funding: Special Research Fund, Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)

Promotor

Jurgen Pieters

Fellow

Kornee van der Haven

Research disciplines

Humanities and the arts
- History
- Language studies
- Literary studies
- Theory and methodology of language studies
- Theory and methodology of linguistics
- Theory and methodology of literary studies
- Other languages and literary studies
- Theory and methodology of philosophy

Keywords

war writing enlightenment discursive strategies German literature dutch literature Epic poetry bellicism

Project description

This study of enlightened war writing in Dutch and German literature seeks to read epic texts in combination with military treatises and lectures, to find out how literature made war ‘experiencable’ for citizens as ‘readers of war’. The project explores how tensions in the 18th-century epic genre relate to the bellicist aim of getting closer to the experience of war.