Interpreting the war

The Great War and Modern Memory

“…Nonetheless, the notion of a modern, ironic mindset coming into existence between 1914 and 1918 has led to The Great War and Modern Memory being taken as the leading representative of the argument that the First World War constituted a rupture with the past. 25 In this vein, Campbell writes that '[i]t is probably not an exaggeration to state that Fussell claims that modern culture is a direct product of the war'; 26 Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends.…”

“…In Fussell's words: 'By applying to the past a paradigm of ironic action, a rememberer is enabled to locate, draw forth, and finally shape into significance an event or a moment which otherwise would merge without meaning into the general undifferentiated stream' (31). The Great War and Modern Memory since 'they represent the primary manner in which his mind makes meaning': 30 such an approach would be in line with Frye's 'axiom of criticism' that the poet 'cannot talk about what he knows'. 31 In this view, it is Fussell's prerogative, as critic-combatant and non-poet, to isolate and explicate and so, in a sense, to construct the literary paradigms by which the war was configured.…”

“…continuity. The sporting terminology used to characterise battle was a Victorian public school idiom(26)(27)(28)(29)(30). The idea of the enemy to the rear was an 'odd resumption' of the collision between Arnold's Educated and Philistines (98).…”

“…Heroes' Twilight (1965) had already established the soldier-poets as 'synonymous with the Great War canon' 10. (Yeats famously left them out of The Oxford Book of Modern Verse on the grounds that 'passive suffering is not a theme for poetry', an odd comment which raises the question of what active suffering might look like.…”

The Great War and Modern Memory

“…As James Campbell notes, there was nothing new about this focus: John H. Johnston's English Poetry of the First World War (1964) and Bernard Bergonzi's Heroes' Twilight (1965) had already established the soldier-poets as 'synonymous with the Great War canon'. 10 (Yeats famously left them out of The Oxford Book of Modern Verse on the grounds that 'passive suffering is not a theme for poetry', an odd comment which raises the question of what active suffering might look like. 11 ) It left Fussell, like Johnston and Bergonzi before him, open to criticism for narrowness and elitism: the Great War of The Great War and Modern Memory encompasses no air or sea war, no home front, no European or Empire or female voices.…”