Shifting views of death: Brady, Whitman, Bierce, and Crane

Death, the central subject among artists and authors in antebellum America, gained even greater popularity during the Civil War. The conflict produced social views which contrasted with pre-war representations, preconceptions, and encounters with death. While literary critics acknowledge that the Civil War marked an important transition in literature from romanticism to realism, many works, including novels, letters, diaries and journals, would benefit from a deeper and more sustained study. Such a study must also include Matthew Brady, the pioneer of photojournalism for his contribution of Civil War photographs. Walt Whitman, Ambrose Bierce, and Stephen Crane portrayed the truth of war that the soldiers already knew and that Brady so brilliantly capture in his photographs. These new representations of death influenced conceptions of death away from romantic views toward a realization of its horrific realities and left a persistent impression in the public imagination, giving rise to expanding views. Those powerful visions of death that the Civil War produced remains firmly impressed upon American society today.