Humour in British First World War Literature

Taming the Great War

Emily Anderson (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

IX, 235 Seiten

2024
Springer International Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-031-34053-6 (ISBN)

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This book explores how humorous depictions of the Great War worked to familiarise, domesticate, and tame the conflict. While well-known examples of First World War literature often emphasize enormous emotional disruption and the war's extremes, other writers used humour to encourage a gentle, mild amusement, drawing on familiar, popular genres and forms used before 1914. In humorous portrayals of the war, tameness outdoes the unmanageable and the temperate exceeds the extraordinary. Humour in British First World War Literature is based on little-known primary material uncovered from detailed archival research, as well as works that, though written by celebrated authors, tend not to be placed in the canon of Great War literature. Each chapter examines key examples of literary texts, ranging from short stories and poetry to theatre and periodicals, in doing so investigating the complex representational, political, and social significance of the tame strand in humorous Great War literature.

Emily Anderson is a researcher, writer, and podcaster. Her research interests are in literary humour and unfinished projects.

1. Introduction: '[A]s in most war fiction, humour predominates'.- 2. Humour and Britishness During the Great War: 'If a man brings us a joke, we require to be satisfied of its durability'.- 3. The Domestication of Death: 'There are lots of jokes'.- 4. Class and Social Structure: 'It is not taken seriously'.- 5. War and the Depiction of Gender: 'Let us hope for the best and assume that he is dead'.- 6. The War and the Domestic Sphere: 'That perpetual sense of the ridiculous'.- 7. Parody and Pop Culture in Trench Newspapers: 'Let's whistle ragtime ditties while we're bashing out Hun brains'.- 8. Short Fiction and Service-Author Heroes: 'You can't expect glory and accuracy for a half-penny'.- 9. Conclusion.

Erscheinungsdatum	14.09.2024
Zusatzinfo	IX, 235 p. 3 illus.
Verlagsort	Cham
Sprache	englisch
Maße	148 x 210 mm
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Dramatik / Theater
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften
Schlagworte	affect theory • British and Irish Literature • Cartoons • Emotions • gender roles • Great Britain • Humour • Limericks • Literature and Class • minor literature • nonsense rhymes • Periodicals • Short Story • Trauma • trench newspapers • World War I
ISBN-10	3-031-34053-1 / 3031340531
ISBN-13	978-3-031-34053-6 / 9783031340536
Zustand	Neuware