Towards a poetics of civil war
McDowell, Nicholas
Date: 6 October 2015
Article
Journal
Essays in Criticism: a quarterly journal of literary criticism
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Publisher DOI
Abstract
THE ROMAN ORIGINS of the term ‘civil war’ convey its ‘paradoxical, even oxymoronic, nature’. Bellum civile denoted a just war (bellum) against citizens (cives); but, for the Romans, a just war could by definition only be waged against external enemies (hostes). The notion of a just war against Roman citizens was therefore a contradiction ...
THE ROMAN ORIGINS of the term ‘civil war’ convey its ‘paradoxical, even oxymoronic, nature’. Bellum civile denoted a just war (bellum) against citizens (cives); but, for the Romans, a just war could by definition only be waged against external enemies (hostes). The notion of a just war against Roman citizens was therefore a contradiction in terms, to be regarded with horror as unnatural and grotesque: the Romans dreaded civil war above all wars and called it ‘intestine’.
English
Collections of Former Colleges
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