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Napoleon as Philoctetes: Military Masculinity, Sacrifice and the Image of the Wound
Author(s) -
Shaw Philip
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/1754-0208.12571
Subject(s) - masculinity , sacrifice , order (exchange) , negotiation , history , art , philosophy , sociology , gender studies , law , political science , theology , finance , economics
Abstract This article focuses on images of the wounded Napoleon in order to draw some broader conclusions about the sacrificial underpinnings of the French empire. The article considers how graphic representations of the wounded Napoleon Bonaparte helped to negotiate the complex relations between acknowledgements of corporeal vulnerability, ideas of military masculinity and assertions of national unanimity. Particular attention is paid to Pierre Gautherot's painting Napoléon blessé au pied devant Ratisbonne (1810) and to an anonymous graphic satire, Nicolas Philoctète dans l'îsle d'Elbe (1814‐15).