World War I and Modernism
The Effects of War on Literature
Background on World War 1
- Technically began between Austria-Hungary and Russia with the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand
- 1914-1920
- Called "The Great War" and "The War to End All Wars"
- Was the first war to use machine guns, leading to trench warfare and massive casualties
Archdukes, Cynicism, and World War I: Crash Course World History #36
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Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway served as an ambulance driver in 1918 until he was injured and sent to a hospital in Milan.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
At 21 years old, Fitzgerald dropped out of school to join the army. Though he was never deployed, he became a second infantry lieutenant at Camp Sheridan.
E.E. Cummings
Cummings joined an ambulance corpse in 1917 but was detained in a military detention camp by the French military. This experience led to the basis of the novel The Enormous Room.
Effects on Literature
- Break from tradition as people saw the devastation of the war
- loss, despair, and alienation of the self
- difference of personal experience
Virginia Woolf
Woolf wrote on the returning soldiers and the feeling of loss and despair that came with them in novels like Mrs. Dalloway.
Ezra Pound
An ex-patriot writer, Pound was struck by the devastation of the war. This and his loss of faith in England (where he lived during the war) influenced his modernism writing.
T.S. Eliot
Eliot's The Waste Land and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" are examples of modernism pieces that exemplify the theme of alienation in the post-war world.