Patriotic Gore
LC Class | 62009834 |
Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War is a 1962 book of historical and literary criticism written by Edmund Wilson. It consists of 16 chapters about the works and lives of almost 30 writers, including Ambrose Bierce, George Washington Cable, Mary Boykin Chesnut, Kate Chopin, John William De Forest (who, as American historian Henry Steele Commager put it,[1] "surprisingly gets more space than any other writer, North or South"), Charlotte Forten,
The critic
Blight also characterized Wilson's introduction to the book as a "mesmerizing if troubling manifesto" written "in the midst of various Cold War crises," a "blunt and sustained critique of the Cold War and of war itself." Wilson posited that the moral fervor of the Civil War laid the groundwork for American global aggression in the 20th century. As Blight wrote, the introduction has thus been called "everything from shocking to naive to brilliant; some considered it unpatriotic, even un-American."[7] The essayist Gore Vidal also picked up on this theme, regarding it with more sympathy. "In 1963," he wrote, "as pontifex maximus of the old American republic, Wilson is speaking out with a Roman hardness and clarity, and sadness at what has been lost since Appomattox. Our eighteenth-century res publicus had been replaced by a hard-boiled soft-minded imperium, ever eager to use that terrible swift sword, presumably forever."[10]
When Wilson was honored by President John F. Kennedy at the White House in 1963 with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the president asked him what Patriotic Gore was about. Wilson told him to go read it for himself.[11]
References
- ^ a b c d Commager, Henry Steele (29 April 1962). "Myths, Morals and a House Divided" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
- ^ Safire, William (16 March 1984). "Essay: Patriotic Gore". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
- ^ "New and Noteworthy". The New York Times. 18 November 1984. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
- ^ "Edmund Wilson's Civil War". Commentary Magazine. 1 August 1962. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
- ^ a b Blight, David (22 March 2012). "Patriotic Gore is Not Really Much Like Any Other Book by Anyone". Slate. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
- ^ "The Confounding Truth About Frederick Douglass." Randall Kennedy. The Atlantic. December 2018
- ^ "Edmund Wilson's Civil War". Commentary Magazine. 1 August 1962. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
- ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
- ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved 29 March 2023.