The Nation's Cause: French, English and German Poetry of the First World War

Poetry enjoyed an unprecedented popularity during the First World War. Many popular daily newspapers carried a new poem every day, and thousands of volumes of poetry were published across Europe. In this the author argues that the war poetry must be understood as a social as well as literary phenomenon. As well as locating the work of well-known poets - Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Rene Arcos and Apollinaire - in a European context, the author has examined a corpus of wartime poetry hitherto neglected by critics, including poems by women, the non-propagandist verse of combatants, and the substantial body of civilian protest poetry. The study focuses on internationally shared characteristics, but in the process it raises questions about unique national features. Why did German patriotic poets voice enthusiastic praise for modern weapons and industrial workers, while those of England and France pretended that industry did not exist?. What made Belgian patriotic poetry different to any other kind, and anti-heroic deaths especially popular in English?. Whether it carried a message of devotion to the Fatherland or spoke out against the brutalities of war, poetry as an international phenomenon can, as this study demonstrates, afford new insights into the working of propaganda and the relationship between nationalism and the social attitudes that determined the conduct of war.