The Soldier's Two Bodies - by James Greene (Hardcover)

About the Book

"In The Soldier's Two Bodies, James M. Greene investigates an overlooked genre of early American literature--the Revolutionary War veteran narrative--showing that it by turns both promotes and critiques a notion of military heroism as the source of U.S. sovereignty. Personal narratives by veterans of the American Revolution indicate that soldiers in the United States have been represented in two contrasting ways from the nation's first days: as heroic symbols of the body politic and as human beings whose sufferings are neglected by their country"--

Book Synopsis

In The Soldier's Two Bodies, James M. Greene investigates an overlooked genre of early American literature--the Revolutionary War veteran narrative--showing that it by turns both promotes and critiques a notion of military heroism as the source of U.S. sovereignty. Personal narratives by veterans of the American Revolution indicate that soldiers in the United States have been represented in two contrasting ways from the nation's first days: as heroic symbols of the body politic and as human beings whose sufferings are neglected by their country.

Published from 1779 through the late 1850s, narrative accounts of Revolutionary War veterans' past service called for recognition from contemporary audiences, inviting readers to understand the war as a moment of violence central to the founding of the nation. Yet, as Greene reveals, these calls for recognition at the same time underscored how many veterans felt overlooked and excluded from the sovereign power they fought to establish. Although such narratives stem from a discourse that supports centralized, continental nationalism, they disrupt stable notions of a unified American people by highlighting those left behind.

Greene discusses several well-known examples of the genre, including narratives from Ethan Allen, Joseph Plumb Martin, and Deborah Sampson, along with Herman Melville's fictional adaptation of the life of Israel Potter. Additional chapters focus on accounts of postwar frontier actions, including narratives collected by Hugh Henry Brackenridge that voice concerns over populist violence, along with stranger narratives like those of Isaac Hubbell and James Roberts, which register as fantastic imitations of the genre commenting on antebellum racial politics.

With attention to questions of historical context and political ideology, Greene charts the process by which veteran narratives promote exception, violence, and autonomy, while also encouraging restraint, sacrifice, and collectivity. Revolutionary War veteran narratives offer no easy solutions to the appropriation of veterans' lives within military nationalism and sovereign violence. But by bringing forward the paradox inherent in the figure of the U.S. soldier, the genre invites considerations of how to reimagine those representations.

Drawing attention to paradoxes presented by the memory of the American Revolution, The Soldier's Two Bodies locates the origins of a complicated history surrounding the representation of veterans in U.S. politics and culture.

Review Quotes

A major work of recovery and analysis, Greene's engaging study of Revolutionary War veteran narratives offers fresh perspective on the soldier, the military, and the nation. Focusing on tensions between soldiers' military and civilian bodies in the narratives of Ethan Allen, Israel Potter, Deborah Sampson, and many other veteran writers, Greene shows how the veteran became a cultural nexus for imagining war in relation to American sovereignty.--Robert S. Levine, author of Race, Transnationalism, and Nineteenth-Century American Literary Studies

James Greene takes up the notoriously elusive concept of popular sovereignty and brings it to life via the lives and narratives of a fascinating array of Revolutionary-era soldiers. Drawing on a wide range of historical, literary and theoretical texts, Greene sheds light on the complex interplay of violence and vulnerability, self-determination and subordination, that constitutes the soldier's 'two bodies.'--Paul Downes, author of Democracy, Revolution and Monarchism in Early American Literature

This is a fascinating, incisive study about the paradoxes of popular sovereignty that underwrite eighteenth- and nineteenth-century veteran narratives. The care with which it has been researched and written distinguishes it as a valuable contribution to our understanding of the period's literary, military, and political history, and as a touching, respectful tribute to the service of U.S. veterans, past and present.--Siân Silyn Roberts, author of Gothic Subjects: The Transformation of Individualism in American Fiction, 1790-1861

About the Author

James M. Greene is assistant professor of English at Indiana State University.