Social Remembering, Disenchantment and First World War Literature, 1918–1930

Frayn, Andrew

Abstract

The way that the First World War would be remembered was yet to be solidified in the years immediately after the Armistice and peace treaties. Using key case studies from the years 1918 to 1930 by combatant authors Gilbert Frankau, Ernest Raymond, C.E. Montague, R.C. Sherriff and Richard Aldington, this article charts the development of the complex relationship between the dominant heroic mode and emergent modern disenchantment. Theories of social remembering provide a valuable framework for understanding the social processes by which disenchantment became a, if not the, widely-held memory of the conflict, reaching acceptance in the War Books Boom that followed the dual successes of Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen Nichts Neues, first serialised on the tenth anniversary of the armistice, and Sherriff’s Journey’s End, first performed the following month.

Citation

Frayn, A. (2018). Social Remembering, Disenchantment and First World War Literature, 1918–1930. Journal of War and Culture Studies, 11(3), 192-208. https://doi.org/10.1080/17526272.2018.1490072

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 21, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Jul 6, 2018
• Publication Date: Jul 3, 2018
• Deposit Date: Aug 6, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 6, 2018
• Journal: Journal of War and Culture Studies
• Print ISSN: 1752-6272
• Electronic ISSN: 1752-6280
• Publisher: Intellect
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 192-208
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17526272.2018.1490072
• Keywords: disenchantment, First World War literature, heroic mode, memory studies, social remembering, War Books Boom, war writing
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1238583