World War One, American Literature, and the Federal State

This book shows an empowered federal state as a significant factor in experimental American culture well before the 1930s.

Mark Whalan (Author)

9781108473835, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 September 2018

282 pages, 7 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.9 cm, 0.53 kg

'Whalan's well-researched and wide-ranging study is a valuable contribution to revisionary modernist studies.' John Carlos Rowe, American Literary History

In this book, Mark Whalan argues that World War One's major impact on US culture was not the experience of combat trauma, but rather the effects of the expanded federal state bequeathed by US mobilization. Writers bristled at the state's new intrusions and coercions, but were also intrigued by its creation of new social ties and political identities. This excitement informed early American modernism, whose literary experiments often engaged the political innovations of the Progressive state at war. Writers such as Wallace Stevens, John Dos Passos, Willa Cather, Zane Grey, and Edith Wharton were fascinated by wartime discussions over the nature of US citizenship, and also crafted new forms of writing that could represent a state now so complex it seemed to defy representation at all. And many looked to ordinary activities transformed by the war - such as sending mail, receiving healthcare, or driving a car - to explore the state's everyday presence in American lives.

Acknowledgements
Credits
Introduction
1. Freeloading in hobohemia: antimodernism, free verse, and the state in American World War One periodical culture
2. Letters from a soldier: wartime letters and states of intimacy
3. The regional novel and the wartime state
4. USA., World War One, and the petromodern state
5. Fictions of rehabilititation
Conclusion
Notes.

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