The Progress of Patriotism and Biography: The Battle of Trafalgar in Southey's The Life of Nelson
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Date
1997
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Towson University. Department of English
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Citation of Original Publication
Hahn, H. George. "The Progress of Patriotism and Biography: The Battle of Trafalgar in Southey's The Life of Nelson." War, Literature, & the Arts, vol. 9, no. 2, 1997, pp. 67-82, http://www.wlajournal.com/wlaarchive/9_1/HGeorgeHahn.pdf
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Abstract
[From article]: "Every poet," said Ovid, "bears the burden of Homer" (I.i). And every biographer faces the problems and looks to the standard of Plutarch. But the biographer of a contemporary bears the burden of his times as well-its ethical and literary standards, the economic and political breezes then blowing, the biases of family, friends, and enemies of the subject. One model of the pull of tradition and the tug of the present is Robert Southey's great The Life of Nelson. The counterweights represent biographical progress by retreat and English patriotism by frontal assault.