Trauma, primitivism, and the First World War : the making of Frank Prewett / Joy Porter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Porter, Joy, 1967- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prewett, Frank, 1893-1962--Psychology.

Prewett, Frank.

Prewett, Frank, 1893-1962--Friends and associates.

Prewett, Frank, 1893-1962.

Poets, Canadian--20th century--Biography.

Poets, Canadian.

War neuroses.

Patients.

Friends and associates.

Psychology.

Great Britain.

World War, 1914-1918--Literature and the war.

World War, 1914-1918.

Soldiers--Great Britain--Biography.

Soldiers.

War neuroses--Patients--Great Britain--Biography.

Friendship.

War and literature.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xii, 289 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.

Summary:

"This book examines the extraordinary life of Frank "Toronto" Prewett and the history of trauma, literary expression, and the power of self-representation after WWI. Joy Porter sheds new light on how the First World War affected the Canadian poet, and how war-induced trauma or "shell-shock" caused him to pretend to be an indigenous North American. Porter investigates his influence of, and acceptance by, some of the most significant literary figures of the time, including Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves. In doing so, Porter skillfully connects a number of historiographies that usually exist in isolation from one another and rarely meet. By bringing together a history of the WWI era, early twentieth century history, Native American history, the history of literature, and the history of class Porter expertly crafts a valuable contribution to the field"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: On method and approach

Summary

1. Being Frank Prewett

An enthusiastic Canadian soldier

Choosing a fighting indigenous identity

2. The experience of combat in the First World War

The body and the mind in war

The positives of war

Prewett's dissociative poem `Card Game'

A sheer time: Being blown up, then buried alive

3. `Shell-shock'

`Shell-shock' in interdisciplinary context

Gender and `shell-shock'

The debate over organic versus psychological causes

Incidence and diagnosis

Class and `shell-shock'

Experiencing `shell-shock'

Treatment options

4. Primitivism, `Toronto' Prewett and Dr William Halse Rivers Rivers (1864-1922)

Reconsidering the best-known `shell-shock' doctor of the First World War

Rivers's empathetic reciprocity in clinical context

Rivers and primitivism

Containing the primitive: The `shell-shock' doctors and the 1898 expedition to the Torres Straits

`A human experiment in nerve division

5. Adopting the `Toronto' personality at Lennel and meeting Siegfried Sassoon

`Shell-shocked' at Lennel

Dressing up and pretending in the early twentieth century

`Toronto' Prewett, Long Lance and Grey Owl

Sassoon smitten by `Toronto' Prewett

Sassoon: A soldier, acting on behalf of soldiers

6. Prewett's friendship with Robert Graves and trauma poetry

Graves: Conjuror in myth and jests `too deep for laughter'

Prewett's communion with the dead and trauma poetry

7. An `Iroquois' at Oxford and Garsington

Oxford University

The theatre of Garsington

Ottoline and Philip Morrell

Understanding Ottoline via the law of inverse proportion

Beauty, philosophy, sex and life in the `specious present'

`Toronto' Prewett's popularity

A `blue and gold existence': Ambivalence and Ottoline

8. Repatriated to a suburbanizing Canada: November 1919-January 1921

Return amid pandemic to a consumerist Canada bereft of indigenous values

Prewett's published and unpublished poetry on trauma, romance, sex and nature

9. `Mad in the peace': Farming and trauma poetry

Using Edward Thomas to understand Prewett's ambivalent relationship with the natural world

Chickens and cheese

Tubney farm, marriage and a daughter

10. Prewett responds to changes in the land

The Chazzey Tragedy

Publishing on country life, marriage and a son

Endings: Surviving but not escaping war

Conclusion: Protest memory and soft primitivism

Primitivism and intellectual change

Primitivism and The Rite of Spring

Protest memory and trauma poetry

Yeats and the exclusion of protest memory

Soft primitivism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-282) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Porter, Joy, 1967- Trauma, primitivism, and the First World War

ISBN:

9781350199729

1350199729

OCLC:

1227273368