The Latin poet
Horace wrote dulce et decorum est pro patria mori meaning "it is
sweet and meet [right] to die for one's country". This carefully
carved tombstone found at Wroxeter in Shropshire suggests how
cultures such as the Romans revered their soldiers. You can find
out more about Roman writing on memorials by visiting the Shropshire Routes to Roots website page on Wroxeter writing.
In more recent history, in cultures which held to a chivalric code, soldiers fought not only for patriotic reasons but for the love and admiration of their 'Lady'. As the sixteenth-century poet Sir. Philip Sidney notes, Astrophel's ability in the joust is not so much because "Nature me a man of arms did make" and more to do with the fact that "Stella look'd on". He fought to impress:
Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance
Guided so well that I obtain'd the prize,
Both by the judgment of the English eyes
And of some sent from that sweet enemy France;
Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance,
Town folks my strength; a daintier judge applies
His praise to sleight which from good use doth rise;
Some lucky wits impute it but to chance;
Others, because of both sides I do take
My blood from them who did excel in this,
Think Nature me a man of arms did make.
How far they shot awry! The true cause is,
Stella look'd on, and from her heav'nly face
Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race.Astrophel and Stella XLI by Sir Philip Sidney
Sidney was killed in 1586 at the Battle of Zutphen. Pursuing the adventure of combat, and embodying the ideal of heroism when he offered his last drop of water to another soldier, it was said that when his funeral procession passed through London, the people cried, "Farewell, the worthiest knight that lived." This, then, was how combat and chivalry went hand in hand in the popular perception.
Throughout all periods and across all art forms, the heroic image of the soldier fighting for a 'legitimate' cause, be it religious, sexual, nationalistic or political, has been the one which prevailed. Michelangelo's David is perhaps the most prominent Western image of admirable masculinity, an identity formed through his strength, beauty and defiant heroism; Shakespeare's Henry V is an eloquent voice of aggressive patriotism; in modern times the 'action hero' of the cinema is typically aggressive, physically strong and on the side of the righteous underdog.
However, the alternate view has also always been held. Not all writers have viewed valour in combat as equalling greatness. There have always been those who opposed conflict and there have always been those who noted, often ironically, the sheer pointlessness of seeing death in war as a high point of human achievement.
However, it was arguably not until the twentieth century that such a viewpoint came to the fore-front of Western literature, largely because of the falsehood of the rallying cry of chivalry and honour with which poet-soldiers were called to fight in World War One.
Continue with the next section on World War One.
Navigate this theme:- Introduction | Chivalric viewpoints | World War One | Post-war period | Further information
Page created 10 August 2004 and last updated
21 August 2004
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