What is War novel?
A '''war novel''' is a [[novel]] that takes place during some form of [[fight]]ing. In these books, the [[primary action]] happens during [[combat|armed combat]]. Other war novels take place on the [[home front]]. The [[fictional character|characters]] may be busy getting ready for or [[wikt:recovery|recovering]] from [[war]]. It is sometimes called '''military fiction'''. ==History == There have been war novels and other [[story|stories]] about war for many thousands of years. In [[Classics|Ancient Greece and Rome]] and the [[Middle Ages]], people wrote [[epic poetry|epic poems]] about the [[glory]] of war. Some of the most famous epic poems are ''[[The Iliad]]'' by [[Homer]], ''[[The Aeneid]]'' by [[Virgil]], the [[Old English]] [[saga]] ''[[Beowulf]]'', and the [[legend]]s of [[King Arthur]]. Another important [[influence]] of war novels are [[tragedy|tragedies]] ([[Play (theatre)|plays]] about human [[wikt:suffering|suffering]].) [[Euripides]], [[Seneca the Younger]], [[Christopher Marlowe]], and [[William Shakespeare]] wrote plays that are important influences on war novels. Shakespeare's play ''[[Henry V (play)|Henry V]]'' has many [[wikt:feature|feature]]s of a war novel. It has history and [[military tactics]], and it talks about the [[ethic]]s of war. The [[genre]]s of [[Romance (genre)|romance]] and [[satire]] are also important. These works, especially in [[Early Modern Europe]], show [[hero|military heroism]] and folly (foolishness). Some important examples are ''[[The Faerie Queen]]'' by [[Edmund Spenser]] and ''[[Don Quixote]]'' by [[Miguel de Cervantes]]. The [[theme]]s and [[symbol]]s found in modern war novels are also influenced by older works. In ''[[Divine Comedy|The Inferno]]'', [[Dante]] described [[Hell]] in a way that is very close to how war is described in war novels. Other influences are [[John Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' and the [[Apocalypse]] in the ''[[Book of Revelation]]'' in the [[Bible]]. ===Origins=== The first war novels were from the 1600s. At that time [[fiction]]