Behold the Hero: General Wolfe and the Arts in the Eighteenth Century
Alan McNairn
General James Wolfe’s death on 13 September 1759 at the moment of British victory over the French on the plains of Abraham in New France instantly elevated him to the pantheon of British heroes. His courage, his glorious death, and his ability to lead the English and their American colonial brethren in their pursuit of liberty was celebrated in sermons, poetry, drama, music, sculpture, prints, paintings and decorative arts. Exploring the reasons behind Wolfe’s posthumous popularity, McNairn analyses representations of Wolfe in both popular culture and high art, from mass-produced ceramics to Benjamin West’s famous painting of the General’s death, from popular songs to the writings of Oliver Goldsmith, Horace Walpole, Tobias Smollett, Thomas Godfrey, Benjamin Franklin and William Cowper. McNairn argues that Wolfe became the embodiment of British patriotism and the superiority of the British way of life, and that the multitude of literary and visual works about Wolfe, which focus primarily on his death, were created in an environment in which legends of inspiring, politically persuasive heroics were much in demand.