Hey, Stacey!
Staniforth.
on! It kicks ass, and my supervisor, Sue, is the raddest! She's all British
and stuff.
The First World War is often considered the true beginning of the twentieth
century, offering for the first time wholesale brutality automated with the
heartless efficiency of the Industrial Revolution. It is said that World War
I gave birth to Modernism itself, as after the complete destruction of what
had been known as civilization, culture could not go on pretending it was as
it had been. Vast ruptures within the concepts of humanity, honour, glory,
patriotism, freedom, democracy, and peace were reflected in art and
literature cracked with terror and agony, in which all traditions had been
shattered and the cutting edge no longer took for granted the existence of
human kindness. Modernism as a field of study has embraced the effects of
the war on the bohemian society of the 1920s, but relatively little
attention has been paid to those who experienced the war firsthand, who were
forced to readjust their expectations of human behaviour and existence from
the thin propriety of the Victorian nineteenth century they grew up with to
the day-to-day savagery, decay, and total destruction of all out war.
Too often, the First World War is remembered only for the social changes
that are considered its effects, or in bloodless accounts of troop
movements, artillery statistics, and the tactical decisions of the generals
far from the front line. As behind every unit of casualty there was one life
lost, and one more blow to a family and community, behind each social change
lay the myriad fissures in the foundation of that society, which perished,
like so many young men, in the trenches. It is only in the voices of the
survivors of war that one can begin to understand the profound effect the
First World War had upon the remainder of Western Civilisation. The total
collapse of society that took place for the soldiers of the Great War and
the communities and loved ones who lost them is crucial to understanding the
development of Modernism, yet it there is rarely much discussion of the
4-year long moment of cataclysm itself, despite its horribly beautiful
treatment by the many literary minds who served in it.
This project will be an effort to investigate the literary memoirs and
accounts of war by those who experienced it for themselves, across the
boundaries of nations or of literary periods. It will range from Robert
Graves' damning account of the Allies for whom he served to Erich Maria
Remarque's account of the other side of No Man's Land, from the
shell-shocked late Romanticism of the British soldier-poets to the Modernist
leanings of E. E. Cummings. My goal will be to attempt to illuminate the
moment of the collapse of society and history, to examine its effects on the
human beings who had no choice but to surrender their hopes of keeping it
alive, and to follow each soldier's attempt to turn suffering into art as a
last resort for both physical and psychic survival.
Texts to be selected from:
Wilfred Owen: The War Poems
Siegfried Sassoon: The War Poems
Siegfried Sassoon: Memoirs of an Infantry Officer
Robert Graves: Good-Bye to All That
Edmund Blunden: Undertones of War
Erich Maria Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front
E. E. Cummings: The Enormous Room
Start-point for critical readings:
Paul Fussell: The Great War and Modern Memory
Allyson Booth: Postcards From the Trenches
Possible further reading:
Anne Powell (ed.): A Deep Cry: First World War Soldier Poets Killed in
France and Flanders
Frederic Manning: Her Privates We
George Coppard: With A Machine Gun to Cambrai
Vera Brittain: Testament of Youth
Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms
Grading will consist of three short papers (15% each), one long paper (40%),
and discussion (15%).
Rough Schedule of Readings:
Week One: Wilfred Owen
Week Two: Siegfried Sassoon (Poetry)
Week Three: Siegfried Sassoon (Memoirs of an Infantry Officer)
Weeks Four and Five: Robert Graves
Weeks Six and Seven: Edmund Blunden
Weeks Eight and Nine: E. M. Remarque
Weeks Ten and Eleven: E. E. Cummings
Short papers (5-8 pages) will be due on weeks Three, Five, and Seven. Final
paper (20-25 pages) will be due one week following the end of classes.
Much fun, although incredibly, incredibly depressing!
--
"some of my friends sit around every evening
and they worry about the times ahead,
but everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference
and the promise of an early bed."
Tweak
news:GZ0p9.24957$zU5.1...@news20.bellglobal.com,
Staniforth. <jbs...@DONTSPAMMEmagma.ca> uttered:
> Here's the outline for the independent reading project I'm currently
> working on! It kicks ass, and my supervisor, Sue, is the raddest!
> She's all British and stuff.
>
>
> The First World War is often considered the true beginning of the
> twentieth century, offering for the first time wholesale brutality
> automated with the heartless efficiency of the Industrial Revolution.
Deep on us up to date on this. I love it already and look forward to the
rest. I'm saving this for future reading. <g>
--
Best Regards, Matthew Williams
np: Longshot - Inside Out
"I hate when lanes end."
*subtract foureleven to reply*
stacey
Sounds like a pretty cool class there. Is this just an independent study,
whereby you meet with the instructor on a set schedule to discuss the
readings or what? Those are good. This one sounds rather structured
though...but that can be helpful too, and spur you to get the work done.
I'm not really familiar with a lot of the lit. from that time period (I'm
better with advtertising, art, cinema, quack medicine, and war
propaganda), but it does look like fun. Or maybe fun isn't the right work.
Very informative, very thorough. And depressing, but that usually just
means the stuffs even better because of it!
So. Whatcha writing that 20 page paper on? ;)