A History of American Literature and Culture of the First World War

This book explores American literature and culture of the First World War while analyzing the war's historical context and significance.

Tim Dayton (Edited by), Mark W. Van Wienen (Edited by)

9781108475327, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 February 2021

466 pages
23.5 x 16 x 3 cm, 0.8 kg

'Recommended.' T. Bonner Jr., Choice Magazine

In the years of and around the First World War, American poets, fiction writers, and dramatists came to the forefront of the international movement we call Modernism. At the same time a vast amount of non- and anti-Modernist culture was produced, mostly supporting, but also critical of, the US war effort. A History of American Literature and Culture of the First World War explores this fraught cultural moment, teasing out the multiple and intricate relationships between an insurgent Modernism, a still-powerful traditional culture, and a variety of cultural and social forces that interacted with and influenced them. Including genre studies, focused analyses of important wartime movements and groups, and broad historical assessments of the significance of the war as prosecuted by the United States on the world stage, this book presents original essays defining the state of scholarship on the American culture of the First World War.

Introduction. America's Great War at one hundred (and counting) Tim Dayton and Mark W. Van Wienen
Part I. Genre and Medium: 1. Poetry: hegemonic vistas Tim Dayton
2. Fiction: a war remembered Scott D. Emmert
3. Film: mostly classical Hollywood cinema goes to war and sometimes brings it home Leslie DeBauche
4. Drama: from literary fantasy to gritty realism Brenda Murphy
5. Popular music: tin pan alley as national barometer John Roger Paas
6. Journalism: adventure and reckoning Joe Hayden
7. Memoirs: negotiating the great war's social memory Ian Andrew Isherwood
8. Art and illustration: modes of visual persuasion David M. Lubin
Part II. Settings and Subjects: 9. The peace movement: rapid development, women's leadership, regional diversity Kathleen Brown
10. Americans in France: women writers and international responsibility Jennifer Haytock
11. German Americans: dual loyalties and poetic adaptations of 'The watch on the Rhine' Lorie Vanchena
12. The English in America: cultural propaganda and its agents Alisa Miller
13. Preparedness: Theodore Roosevelt, Leonard Wood, and rookie rhymes Adam Szetela
14. Propaganda: martialing media Pearl James
15. Conscientious objectors: conscience, courage, and resistance Scott H. Bennett
16. Volunteers: ambulance and nursing narratives Hazel Hutchison
17. African Americans: defining freedom, citizenship, and patriotism Françoise N. Hamlin
18. In the Midwest: 'Borne back ceaselessly into the past' David Rennie
19. In the south: three Mississippi writers and the Great War mobilization David A. Davis
20. Revolution: winning the world, losing the (middle) way Mark W. Van Wienen
21. Monuments and memorials: memory dissipated Mark Levitch
Part III. Transformations: 22. The nation: forging one, finding many Jonathan Vincent
23. Free speech: 'clear and present danger' Ernest Freeberg
24. Labour: from replaceable cogs to corporate citizens Thomas Mackaman
25. The veteran: parades, bitter homecomings, and fictions of the doughboy's return Steven Trout
26. The military-industrial complex: practices, precedents, and literary engagements Mark Whalan
27. The world: race, red-baiting, and the Wilsonian century Alexander Anievas.

Subject Areas: First World War [HBWN], First World War fiction [FJMF], Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]