The Red Badge of Courage

What was "tinsel courage"?

chapter 14

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"Tinsel courage" might mean something like a fake or phony courage which doesn't really stand up to real life situations of war. See the following passage:

The youth reflected. He had been used to regarding his comrade as a blatant child with an audacity grown from his inexperience, thoughtless, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage. A swaggering babe accustomed to strut in his own dooryard. The youth wondered where had been born these new eyes; when his comrade had made the great discovery that there were many men who would refuse to be subjected by him. Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of wisdom from which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing. And the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live in his friend's neighborhood.

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http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/badge-14.html

This is courage bourn out of bravodo and "hot air" rather than a courage from inner meaning and maturity, "with an audacity grown from his inexperience, thoughtless, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage."