Writing disenchantment : British First World War prose, 1914-30 / Andrew Frayn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Frayn, Andrew, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English prose literature.

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

World War, 1914-1918.

War in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 259 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This book argues that disenchantment is not only a response to wartime experience, but a condition of modernity with a language that finds extreme expression in First World War literature. The objects of disenchantment are often the very same as the enchantments of scientific progress: bureaucracy, homogenisation and capitalism. Older beliefs such as religion, courage and honour are kept in view, and endure longer than often is realised. Social critics, theorists and commentators of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provide a rich and previously unexplored context for wartime and post-war literature. The rise of the disenchanted narrative to its predominance in the War Books Boom of 1928 - 1930 is charted from the turn of the century in texts, archival material, sales and review data. Rarely-studied popular and middlebrow novels are analysed alongside well-known highbrow texts: D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, H. G. Wells and Rebecca West rub shoulders with forgotten figures such as Gilbert Frankau and Ernest Raymond. These sometimes jarring juxtapositions show the strained relationship between enchantment and disenchantment in the war and the post-war decade.

Contents:

Cover; Writing disenchantment; Contents; List of figures; Acknowledgements ; List of abbreviations ; Introduction; 1 Patriotism, propaganda and pacifism, 1914-1918; 2 From hope to Disenchantment, 1919-1922; 3 Modernism, conflict and the home front, 1922-1927; 4 Sagas and series, 1924-1928; 5 Popular disenchantment: the War Books Boom, 1928-1930; Conclusion; Select bibliography; Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 15 May 2026).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781526103178

1526103176

9781781707333

1781707332

OCLC:

906782157