Defining “Soldier”: An Analysis of the Use of Military Terminology in 18th Century Literature Kristyn J. Rethaford College

Gender and economics were no less intertwined during the eighteenth century than they are today. In the world of emerging paper currency and capitalism, many issues were coming to light for the first time, and so it comes as little surprise that the literature of the day so often focused on economic problems. But not all the issues addressed in eighteenth century literature were new ones. Some, like the economics of the human body, have been present as far back as we can trace in history. Often, this issue is addressed in literature in the form of female prostitution, and eighteenth century literature is no different. However, present in many texts is another form of selling one’s body—that of the soldier, and military service as an economic transaction. For the purposes of this essay, sale of the body will be defined as a circumstance in which the entire transaction revolves around the physical form, in which both buyer and seller are willful participants, and in which the body itself is made vulnerable and placed at the mercy of the buyer. I will be analyzing the depiction of soldiers in Aphra Behn’s The Rover and George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer. I argue that the sale of the body for military purposes was not viewed...