Overview

A new exploration of literary and artistic responses to WW1 from 1914 to the present This authoritative reference work examines literary and artistic responses to the war's upheavals across a wide range of media and genres, from poetry to pamphlets, sculpture to television documentary, and requiems to war reporting. Rather than looking at particular forms of artistic expression in isolation and focusing only on the war and inter-war period, the 26 essays collected in this volume approach artistic responses to the war from a wide variety of angles and, where appropriate, pursue their inquiry into the present day. In 6 sections, covering Literature, the Visual Arts, Music, Periodicals and Journalism, Film and Broadcasting, and Publishing and Material Culture, a wide range of original chapters from experts across literature and the arts examine what means and approaches were employed to respond to the shock of war as well as asking such key questions as how and why literary and artistic responses to the war have changed over time, and how far later works of art are responses not only to the war itself, but to earlier cultural production. Key Features Offers new insights into the breadth and depth of artistic responses to WWIEstablishes links and parallels across a wide range of different media and genresEmphasises the development of responses in different fields from 1914 to the presentIllustrated with 36 b&w and 16 colour illustrations

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9781399546751

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Reviews

This omnibus volume edited by Einhaus and Baxter is richly illustrated and packed with a remarkable array of studies devoted to the cultural ecosystem in Britain during the war. It reaches out geographically to include reportage on the Ottoman front, Anglophone writing in Ireland or America and the colonies, as well as cultural legacies, such as sculptural memorials, in some other European countries. Every conceivable genre from poetry to propaganda poster is represented. At the same time, individual chapters unsettle conventional distinctions among forms and offer economic and statistical as well as textual analyses. Contributors explore diverse audiences with a social reach from high to low, or mainstream to avant-garde and general to local. Useful historical analyses of political conditions that constrained or promoted production inform our understanding of both canonized and popular texts. A welcome representation of media, and vivid descriptions of performances, including conflicts within their audiences, bring the moment to life. One comes away astonished by the vast range of culture enjoyed on the home front, in music halls, cinema, in large audiences as well as in the comfort of one's armchair. While full attention is given to material from 1914-1918, a distinctive accomplishment of this collection is the sustained pursuit of the afterlife of the war in novels, films, memorials, children's literature, television and even computer games. The conflicts of the past, we learn, continue to challenge and divide audiences even today.--Margaret Higonnet, University of Connecticut

Author Information

Ann-Marie Einhaus is Senior Lecturer in Modern & Contemporary Literature in the Department of Humanities at Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Her main research specialism is short fiction of and about the First World War from 1914 to the present, and she has also published on links between teaching, literature and cultural memory of the war, on middlebrow fiction, and on Wyndham Lewis.

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