Politics and literature at the dawn of World War II James A. W. Heffernan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Heffernan, James A. W., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

World War, 1939-1945--Influence.

World War, 1939-1945.

War in literature.

War and literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (256 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022.

System Details:

text file

HTML

Summary:

"Mining the borderlands where history meets literature in Britain and Europe as well as America, this book shows how the imminence and outbreak of World War II ignited the imaginations of writers ranging from Ernest Hemingway, W.H. Auden, and James Joyce to Bertolt Brecht, Evelyn Waugh, Henry Green, and Irène Némirovsky. Taking its cue from Percy Shelley's dictum that great writers are to some extent created by the age in which they live, this book shows how much the politics and warfare of the years from 1939 to 1941 drove the literature of this period. Its novels, poems, and plays differ radically from histories of World War II because-besides being works of imagination-- they are largely products of a particular stage in the author's life as well as of a time at which no one knew how the war would end. This is the first comprehensive study of the impact of the outbreak of the Second World War on the literary work of American, English, and European writers during its first years"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Prologue: History and Literature

1.Hitler, FDR, and American Writing in 1939

2.Prague after Munich: The Plight of Refugees in Martha Gellhorn's A Stricken Field

3. W.H. Auden, "September 1, 1939"

4. Bertolt Brecht, The Svendborg Poems

5. Brecht, Poland, and Mother Courage

6. The Nazification of Romania in Olivia Manning's The Balkan Trilogy

7.The Fall of France in Marc Bloch's Strange Defeat and Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française

8. The Joke War in Evelyn Waugh's Put Out More Flags

9.War, Fire, and Sex in Henry Green's Caught

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9781350474802

1350474800

9781350324992

135032499X

9781350324985

1350324981

9781350324978

1350324973

9781350324961

1350324965

OCLC:

1301504550