Abstract The human body is the primary instrument of war, yet those waging war often confront soldiers’ bodies in a detached or merely intellectual way. In The Tenderness of Silent Minds, Martha C. Nussbaum, a leading thinker on emotion, morality, and justice, conducts a pioneering study of Benjamin Britten’s musical representations of the body amidst the brutality of war, and their ability to transform consciousness by evoking potent, non-personal emotions. Situating technical musicological analysis within philosophical accounts of both the aesthetics of the musical portrayal of war and the ethics of pacifism, Nussbaum presents a compelling framework for the critically assessment of Britten’s oeuvre, examining his account of aggression and its roots in his early collaborations with the poet W. H. Auden, offering a reading of Britten’s views about the value and beauty of the body that situates these in the context of his thirty-nine-year partnership with his lover, the singer Peter Pears, and also surveying pacifist themes in works written both before and after the War Requiem. The analysis throughout is enriched with perspectives from Britten’s letters and from thoughtful study of the social and political backdrop of fear and homophobic disgust in mid-twentieth century Britain. According to Nussbaum’s interpretation, War Requiem confronts listeners with the reality of bodily experience in war, eliciting compassion by its depiction of beauty, vulnerability, and eroticism. Issuing a stern warning, it points the way to hope for postwar reconciliation.
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