The popularity of the musical, Hamilton, featuring the death of
Alexander Hamilton in a duel with Aaron Burr, then Vice President
of the United States, has revived interest in duelling, but also
aroused incredulity that such events could ever have occurred.
Where did the custom originate, and why did it spread so quickly
all over Europe and the Americas? Duelling was once commonplace.
Prime ministers and poets, artists and journalists, and even some
ladies went out to the 'field of honour'. Casanova fought with a
Polish nobleman in Warsaw, the Duke of Wellington duelled with an
English earl in Hyde Park and the Russian poet Pushkin died in a
duel in St Petersburg. There were many enigmas associated with the
phenomenon. As well as displaying skills with the sword or the
pistol, a duellist had to silence problems of conscience. Could
duelling be squared with the commandment against killing one's
neighbour? Did the fact that both parties were inspired by a
gentlemanly code of Honour make the duel superior to a vulgar
brawl? The moral justification of duelling intrigued thinkers and
intellectuals. Dr Johnson returned to the issue several times,
while Rousseau was baffled by the question. Duels added drama to
mediocre novels or plays, but featured in the theatre of
Shakespeare and later in the work of such masters as Walter Scott,
Conrad, Chekhov and Pirandello. Duelling has been too long regarded
as an embarrassing sideline in western culture, but for centuries
it was an integral part of history. Joseph Farrell attempts to
clarify what the duel actually was and why men ever behaved that
way. Exploring the social and cultural forces that encouraged what
now seems an extraordinary anachronism, he traces the international
evolution of the duel - and its many representations in literature
and art - from Renaissance Italy to the whole of Europe, including
Britain, and onto the US.
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