The Literature of Absolute War
Transnationalism and World War II

This is the first comparative transnational approach to the language of absolute war and the literature on World War II.

Nil Santiáñez (Author)

9781108817035, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 September 2022

281 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.418 kg

'… an impressive academic feat … the breadth and scope of the book itself seem appropriate, given the immensity of the event itself as well as the wide array of literary responses to it and the overall lack of academic studies focused on the literature of the Second World War … It is a book and study without which any study of the literatures of the twentieth century and more precisely of the history and literatures of war would be woefully incomplete.' Ron Ben-Tovim, Poetics Today

This book explores for the first time the literature of absolute war in connection to World War II. From a transnational and comparative standpoint, it addresses a set of theoretical, historical, and literary questions, shedding new light on the nature of absolute war, the literature on the world war of 1939–45, and modern war writing in general. It determines the main features of the language of absolute war, and how it gravitates around fundamental semantic clusters, such as the horror, terror, and the specter. The Literature of Absolute War studies the variegated responses given by literary authors to the extreme and seemingly unsolvable challenges posed by absolute war to epistemology, ethics, and language. It also delves into the different poetics that articulate the writing on absolute war, placing special emphasis on four literary practices: traditional realism, traumatic realism, the fantastic, and catastrophic modernism.

Preface. Targets
Introduction. Concepts
1. The horror
2. Terror
3. Specters
Coda. Remains.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D]