The Poetry of Unease in the First World War
Heroes, Conflicts, Bodies, Values
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7473846 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lorna Hardwick (0000-0003-0210-1107, The Open University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 88-104 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-02 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of War and Culture Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1752-6272 • E-ISSN: 1752-6280 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17526272.2025.2553264 |
| OpenAlex | W4414855930 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 20 |
First World War poetry has often been stereotyped in the public imagination as protest poetry, but scholarship has shown that the poetry composed during the war varied in its perspectives. Protest poetry did become a feature, but its didacticism contrasts with the more nuanced poetry of unease that was evident from the onset of the war. This article analyses ways in which the poetry of unease deployed the classical texts of ancient Greece and Rome to communicate the impact of conflict on individuals, societies and environments. The Trench poets discussed here came from a wide range of social and educational backgrounds. All used key figures, values and metaphors from ancient texts, especially Homeric epic, as touchstones for exploring the effects of industrialized warfare on conceptions of heroism and conflict, on funerary rituals, and on the relationships between war and environment, providing intertexts for subsequent creative writers and scholars
Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Military History and Strategy · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
| Highly cited | No |
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