Modernism at the front. Modernist temporality in British war journals and magazines

Begin - Einde 
2014 - 2018 (lopend)
Type 
Onderzoeksgebied 
Tijdsperiode 
Trefwoorden 
English literature
Periodicals
World war
Time
Modernism

Tabgroup

Abstract

An important feature of literary modernism is its emphasis on ‘the now,’ its insistence on the present and the immediacy of experience. Modernist writers rejected the nineteenth-century fascination with the past and heralded a new present. Marinetti’s 1909 ‘Futurist manifesto’ is the most famous example of such a stance but it is also found in British pre-war modernist writings. Some critics, e.g. Jay Winter, have argued that WWI interrupted this. Wartime writing, Winter argues, reverts to the traditional vocabularies of mourning to be found in classical and romantic writing. This project seeks to modify this theory of the backward gaze by demonstrating the continued insistence on ‘the now’ in wartime writing. It focuses on British periodicals published at the front (trench journals) and in Britain. Its working hypothesis is that the context of these periodicals’ publication demands they be explored in relation to the pre-war modernist fascination with the now.

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