HENA03824U English - Free topic: Literature of the First World War

August 1914 is a defining date of European history, and this course makes a contribution to the commemoration of its centenary. The purpose of the course is not only to give extended attention to 'the War Poets' -- Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Ivor Gurney, David Jones and others -- but to consider the connections between war and literature, in a perspective that looks back to the Crimean War, the American Civil War and the Boer War, and forward to the wars of the past hundred years. The focus will be on close reading through a wide historical range, in order to understand the ways in which poetry responds to the circumstances of war: poetry as testimony, as representation, as protest, as propaganda, as evasion. While the main texts will be in English we will take some note of poetry in other European languages; we will also look at the visual arts.