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Chapter 6 - Capturing Home

British First World War Poetry

from Part I - Nation and Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2021

James Purdon
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
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Summary

The poetry of the First World War would normally be seen in terms of a transition from the fantasies of war to the realities of war, or from the ‘pro-war’ to the ‘anti-war’, from immature Owen to mature Owen, from Rupert Brooke to Siegfried Sassoon. And yet some of the most important poetry to emerge during these years was arguably either unrelated to the realities of war or barely engaging with it: Edward Thomas’s poetry (published 1917 and 1918), for instance, does not easily fit into any critical approach that emphasises the blood and mud of the trenches. Or, as the title of Ivor Gurney’s collection Severn and Somme (1917) would suggest, any emphasis on the Western Front was seen in relation to home: an imagined home untouched by war, or a home of the past and future. This chapter shows how the poetry of the ‘war poets’ frequently has as much to do with Britain’s domestic affairs as with the fighting itself, exploring themes that all connect somehow to social inequality and social unrest: topics such as class, home ownership, poverty, the role of the Church, women’s careers, national identity, access to education, access to beauty, and the relationship between town and country.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Capturing Home
  • Edited by James Purdon, University of St Andrews, Scotland
  • Book: British Literature in Transition, 1900–1920: A New Age?
  • Online publication: 07 December 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108648714.008
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  • Capturing Home
  • Edited by James Purdon, University of St Andrews, Scotland
  • Book: British Literature in Transition, 1900–1920: A New Age?
  • Online publication: 07 December 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108648714.008
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Capturing Home
  • Edited by James Purdon, University of St Andrews, Scotland
  • Book: British Literature in Transition, 1900–1920: A New Age?
  • Online publication: 07 December 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108648714.008
Available formats
×