Baker, William J. “Charles Kingsley on the
Crimean War: A Study In Chauvinism.” Southern Humanities Review
Vol. IV, No. 3 (Summer 1970): 247-256.
Baker notes that the Crimean War was occurring while Kingsley was writing
Westward Ho!, a war to which he
refers over and over in this novel. Numerous aspects of this later war were
similar, he believed, in many respects to the earlier war with Spain.
The chauvinism he consistently displayed during the Crimean War fostered
as well as reflected the chauvinism of his contemporaries. Moreover,
Kingsley, who never fought in a war, had a romantic “boy-like fantasy” view
of war (254). While in many ways, declares Baker, he was liberal, compassionate,
a free-thinking cleric, a supporter of the poor, an advocate for social reform,
a critic of the discriminatory class system, “his liberal sensitivity stopped
at the northern edge of the English Channel”. He combined in a contradictory
stance “an insightful concern for his country's social problems alongside
an uncritical bellicosity toward national foes” (255).
Westward Ho!
;
Crimean War
; War
; Chauvinism
;
Social and Political Views
.
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