Blockseminar Anglophone Literature Memory and the First World War

This seminar will explore the theme of memory in three works of Anglophone First-World-War literature: Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier (1918), Robert Graves's Good-Bye to All That (1929), and Willa Cather's One of Ours (1922). Erich Maria Remarque's Im Westen nichts Neues (1928) will also serve as a focus since this work, the most influential war novel of all time, enjoyed unrivalled popularity in Great Britain and the United States. All of these books deal with remembering (or forgetting). West's novella focuses on a shell-shocked soldier who suffers from amnesia. Graves's memoir challenges orthodox distinctions between fiction and autobiography by openly embellishing past events. Cather's novel constitutes a textual memorial to a lost cousin. And Remarque's narrative, which employs the time-warping techniques of cinema, presents a hero who is perilously situated between past and present. By placing these works within the context of public war commemoration (as performed through monuments and remembrance rituals), we will consider the ways in which they both challenge and reinforce ideologies that perpetuate warfare. In addition, we will address the following questions: What is the relationship between collective memory (as variously defined by scholars) and literary texts? And how is history different from both collective memory and literature? Please use the following editions: Willa Cather, /One of Ours/, Vintage, ISBN: 0679737448 Robert Graves, /Good-Bye to All That,/ Berghahn Books, ISBN: 1571810226 Note: this is a reprint of the original 1929 text, which differs significantly from Graves's revised 1957 edition. I would prefer that students use the 1929 text. Erich Maria Remarque, /All Quiet on the Western Front,/ Ballantine Books, ISBN: 0449213943 Rebecca West, /The Return of the Soldier/, Penguin, ISBN: 014118065X Anglistik Universität Duisburg-Essen SS 2010 Mag, Magisterstudiengang Professor Trout Steven