Authoring War
The Literary Representation of War from the Iliad to Iraq

Authoring War illuminates the ingenious ways in which writers have met the challenge of conveying conflict, from the Iliad to Iraq.

Kate McLoughlin (Author)

9781107003903, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 January 2011

232 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.48 kg

'… an important intervention into critical discussion of war literature.' Roy Scranton, Partial Answers

Kate McLoughlin's Authoring War is an ambitious and pioneering study of war writing across all literary genres from earliest times to the present day. Examining a range of cultures, she brings wide reading and close rhetorical analysis to illuminate how writers have met the challenge of representing violence, chaos and loss. War gives rise to problems of epistemology, scale, space, time, language and logic. She emphasises the importance of form to an understanding of war literature and establishes connections across periods and cultures from Homer to the 'War on Terror'. Exciting new critical groupings arise in consequence, as Byron's Don Juan is read alongside Heller's Catch-22 and English Civil War poetry alongside Second World War letters. Innovative in its approach and inventive in its encyclopedic range, Authoring War will be indispensable to any discussion of war representation.

Introduction: authoring war
1. Credentials
2. Details
3. Zones
4. Duration
5. Diversions
6. Laughter
Conclusion: to perpetual peace
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Military history [HBW], Literary studies: general [DSB]