Daniel Defoe, Memoirs of a Cavalier; or A Military Journal of the Wars in Germany, and the Wars in England. From the Years 1632 to 1648

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The essence of Daniel Defoe’s

Memoirs of a Cavalier

is captured by its subtitle:

A Military History of the Wars in Germany and the Wars in England, from 1632 to 1648

. It follows an anonymous but individuated hero through a bipartite military career, including major battles in the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War. Given this historical setting it has been considered a precocious historical novel (Backscheider 1986) nearly a century before Sir Walter Scott’s

Waverley

(1814). Otherwise, it has been questioned whether the titular character is sufficiently developed or the narration sufficiently complex to consider the

Memoirs

as anything more than a patchy chronicle with a fictional hero (Boardman 1983). “Novel” is a retrospective classification, one which Defoe would not…

2261 words

Citation: Seager, Nicholas. "Memoirs of a Cavalier; or A Military Journal of the Wars in Germany, and the Wars in England. From the Years 1632 to 1648". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 March 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21937, accessed 19 March 2024.]

21937 Memoirs of a Cavalier; or A Military Journal of the Wars in Germany, and the Wars in England. From the Years 1632 to 1648 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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