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The literature of World War II has emerged as an accomplished, moving, and challenging body of work, produced by writers as different as Norman Mailer and Virginia Woolf, Primo Levi and Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre and W. H. Auden. This Companion provides a comprehensive overview of the international literatures of the war: both those works that recorded or reflected experiences of the war as it happened, and those that tried to make sense of it afterwards. It surveys the writing produced in the major combatant nations (Britain and the Commonwealth, the USA, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, and the USSR), and explores its common themes. With its chronology and guide to further reading, it will be an invaluable source of information and inspiration for students and scholars of modern literature and war studies.
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t h e c a m b r i d g e c o m p an i o n t o t h e l i t e ra t u re o f w o r l d w ar i i The literature of the Second World War has emerged as an accomplished, moving, and challenging body of work, produced by writers as different as Norman Mailer and Virginia Woolf, Primo Levi and Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre and W. H. Auden. This Companion provides a comprehensive overview of the international literatures of the war: both those works that recorded or reflected experiences of the war as it happened, and those that tried to make sense of it afterwards. It surveys the writing produced in the major combatant nations (Britain and the Commonwealth, the USA, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, and the USSR), and explores its common themes. This book aims to supply the new reader with the essential knowledge and conceptual tools for reading the literature of World War II. With its chronology and guide to further reading, it will be an invaluable source of information and inspiration for students and scholars of modern literature and war studies.
THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO
THE LITERATURE OF WORLD WAR II EDITED BY
MARINA MACKAY Washington University, St. Louis
cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521715416 © Cambridge University Press 2009 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2009 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library isbn 978-0-521-88755-7 hardback isbn 978-0-521-71541-6 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
CONTENTS
Notes on contributors Acknowledgments Chronology
page vii x xi
Introduction marina mackay part i
1 anglo-american texts and contexts
1 War poetry in Britain adam piette
13
2 British fiction of the war rod mengham
26
3 War poetry in the USA margot norris
43
4 The American war novel james dawes
56
5 War journalism in English leo mellor
67
part ii
global perspectives
6 The French war debarati sanyal
83
7 The German war dagmar barnouw
98 v
contents 8
9
10
11
The Soviet war katharine hodgson
111