wider context war literature Flashcards
Who was Jessie Pope?
A female English poet, writer and journalist who remains best known for her patriotic, motivational poems published during world war I. Wilfred Owen dedicated his poem Dulce et Decorum est in 1917. Pope’s patriotic poems epitomised the glorification of war that Owen so despised. She was an unofficial part of the war machine writing propaganda poetry for Newspapers such as the Daily Mail. Her most famous poem being ‘Who’s for the game?’
How did working class women take the opportunity at hand during war?
Working class women and some middle class women relished the opportunity to move into jobs usually undertaken by men and wrote about their experiences.
From what perspective did Sylvia Pankhurst write from?
A suffragette’s perspective, but also with an awareness that opportunities for women were at the cost of the lives of men in the trenches.
From what perspective did middle class, educated women write from?
Personal perspective- they represented women as sisters, girlfriends, wives and mothers who wrote about worry, grief and their own men folk.
e.g May Wedderburn Cannan and Elanor Farjeon
What were writers like May Wedderburn Cannan and Elanor Farjeon interested in?
The natural world and its cycle of life, death and rebirth, contrasted with the slaughter of the war.
They sometimes attempted to write empathetically from male combatants perspective.
Who was Vera Brittain?
Vera Brittain was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, writer, feminist and pacifist. She was most famous for her memoirs- Testament of Youth in 1933 and Testament of Experience in 1957.
What caused Vera to write her memoirs?
Both her brother and her fiance were killed in action.
Edward on the Italian front in 1918 and Roland in France in 1915.
Her writing chronicles their early hopes and fears and later, her own grief.
Where were the majority of the most famous war writers from?
most came from privileged classes and attended public school, giving them a shared experience of a broadly common curriculum in academics and sport. They would have all been immersed in a culture where patriotism and religious faith were largely unquestioned- reading those who celebrated heroic tradition such as Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare and Tennyson.
Despite their education, what approach did most war writers take?
Poets such as Brooke went on to find heroic aesthetic in their response to war, however the majority chose to spend their writing career exploring the gap between heroic expectation an the appalling reality of trench war fare. The general cynicism involved finding new forms and a new language to express anti-war thoughts and feelings.
What was the Defence of the Realm act?
Passed on the 8th of August 1914, it gave the government more power to protect national security. This meant that any attempts to publicize material which would alarm or reveal anything controversial about war to the civilized population, would be stopped.
How did Sassoon reveal his contempt for war?
Sassoon published ‘Finished with the War: A Soldiers Declaration’ his writing was a scandal, Sassoon was a well-known and well connected war hero. He’d won the military cross for conspicuous gallantry following a raid on an enemy trench in early 1916.
It was difficult to publish views other than heroic at the time.
