''A Vision of Battlements'' is a 1965 novel by

Anthony Burgess John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his dystopian satire ''A Clockwork ...

based on his experiences during World War II in Gibraltar, where he was serving with the British army. It is Burgess's

first novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to pu ...

: while it was not published until 1965, Burgess wrote it in 1949. As he explained in his introduction to the novel, "I was empty of music but itching to create. So I wrote this novel ... to see if I could clear my head of the dead weight of Gibraltar."

Plot

The story draws from Burgess's experience of being stationed in Gibraltar during the Second World War and satirises traditional notions of battle heroism by parodying the

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of th ...

. The antihero Richard Ennis takes the place of Aeneas. The title, in addition to its

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...

ian associations, contains a reference to the appearance of certain objects in the eye of one who suffers from

astigmatism Astigmatism is a type of refractive error due to rotational asymmetry in the eye's refractive power. This results in distorted or blurred vision at any distance. Other symptoms can include eyestrain, headaches, and trouble driving at n ...

References

Novels by Anthony Burgess 1965 British novels Gibraltarian literature Novels set during World War II Sidgwick & Jackson books {{1960s-WWII-novel-stub