Literature of the 1940s : war, postwar and 'peace' / Gill Plain.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Plain, Gill.

Contributor:

Christine Hikawa Fund.

Series:

Edinburgh history of twentieth-century literature in Britain ; vol. 5.

The Edinburgh history of twentieth-century literature in Britain ; vol. 5

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--20th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Physical Description:

xi, 300 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, [2013]

Summary:

This new study undoes the customary division of the 1940s into the Second World War and after. Instead, it focuses on the thematic preoccupations that emerged from writers' immersion in and resistance to the conflict. Through seven chapters -Documenting, Desiring, Killing, Escaping, Grieving, Adjusting and Atomising-the book sets middlebrow and popular writers alongside residual modernists and new voices to reconstruct the literary landscape of the period. Detailed case studies of fiction, drama and poetry provide fresh critical perspectives on writers as diverse as Margery Allingham, Alexander Baron, Elizabeth Bowen, Keith Douglas, Henry Green, Graham Greene, Georgette Heyer, Alun Lewis, Nancy Mitford, George Orwell, Mervyn Peake, J. B. Priestley, Terrence Rattigan, Mary Renault, Stevie Smith, Dylan Thomas and Evelyn Waugh. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

I War

2 Documenting 39

3 Desiring 74

4 Killing 111

II Postwar

5 Escaping 149

6 Grieving 177

7 Adjusting 206

III 'Peace'

8 Atomising 239.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Christine Hikawa Fund.

ISBN:

0748627448

OCLC:

796277423

Publisher Number:

99955483416