Abstract
Defining any literary canon is a complex process, subject to multiple strains of influence. Cultural authorities perpetually identify potential electees, and as such any canon is disputed. Yet conversely its reputed distinction is what defines its existence. In some ways representatives of the First World War canon of poets and writers in England are easier to identify than in other nations, with the help of the National Curriculum and the subsequent GCSE and A-level focus on war poets and writers, namely, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves. The University of Oxford’s First World War Poetry Digital Archive, which was developed in consultation with and as a tool for educators based at public and state schools in the United Kingdom, also includes Edmund Blunden, Isaac Rosenberg, Edward Thomas, Ivor Gurney, David Jones and Vera Brittain.1 Modern anthologies tend to focus on this group as well, and they also appear in widely referenced collections, including Jon Stallworthy’s Oxford Book of War Poetry (2008).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See Alisa Miller, ‘Rupert Brooke and the Growth of Commercial Patriotism in Great Britain, 1914–1918’, Twentieth Century British History, 21: 2 (2010), 141–62.
See W. B. Yeats, ‘Introduction’, in The Oxford Book ofModern Verse, 1892–1935 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936), pp. xxxiv–xxxv.
Charles Langlois, ‘The Teaching of History in France’, History, 12:47 (1927), 193–205 (p. 197).
Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 ), p. 218.
Rosa Maria Bracco, Merchants of Hope: British Middlebrow Writers and the First World War, 1919–1939 ( Oxford: Berg, 1993 ), p. 19.
Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, La guerre des enfants, 1914–1918: essaie d’histoire culturelle ( Paris: A. Colin, 1993 ), p. 157.
Edmund Blunden, ‘Introduction’, in The War, 1914–1918: A Booklist, ed. by Edmund Blunden, Cyril Falls, H. M. Tomlinson and R. Wright (London: The Reader, 1930), pp. 1–3 (p. 2).
George Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Resha** the Memory of the World Wars ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990 ), p. 58.
G. McCulloch and T. Woodin, ‘Learning and a Liberal Education: The Case of the Simon Family, 1912–1939’, Oxford Review of Education, 36:2 (2010), 187–202 (p. 190 ).
Tim Kendall, Modern British War Poetry ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006 ), p. 83.
See C. M. Bowra, Poetry and Politics, 1900–1960 ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966 ).
Dan Todman, The Great War: Myth and Memory ( London: Hambledon and London, 2005 ), p. 22.
Detlev Peukert, The Weimar Republic: The Crisis of Classical Modernity, transl. by Richard Deveson (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992 ), p. 143.
J. W. Headlam and Paul Mantoux, ‘The Effect of the War on the Teaching of History’, History, 3:9 (1918), 10–19 (p. 16 ).
Stephen Spender, World within World: The Autobiography of Stephen Spender ( London: Faber & Faber, 1977 ), pp. 218–19.
Kevin Myers, ‘The Hidden History of Refugee Schooling in Britain: The Case of the Belgians, 1914–1918’, History of Education, 30:2 (2001), 153–62 (pp. 153–54).
See Annette Becker, Guillaume Apollinaire: Une biographie de guerre 1914–1918 ( Paris: Tallandier, 2009 ).
See Michael Paris, Warrior Nation: Images of War in British Popular Culture, 1850–2000 ( London: Reaktion, 2000 ).
Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading ( London: Harper Collins, 1996 ), p. 63.
Gordon Bowker, Through the Dark Labyrinth: A Biography of Lawrence Durrell ( London: Pimlico, 1996 ), p. 104.
Philip Waller, Writers, Readers and Reputations: Literary Life in Britain ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006 ), p. 6.
Christopher Coker, Waging War Without Warriors: The Changing Culture of Military Conflict ( Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002 ), p. 68.
Deborah Hull, ‘“The Old Lie”: Teaching Children about War, 1914–1939’, Melbourne Historical Journal, 20 (1990), 87–110 (p. 107).
Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008 ), pp. 3–4.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Alisa Miller
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Miller, A. (2015). Towards a Popular Canon: Education, Young Readers and Authorial Identity in Great Britain between the Wars. In: Towheed, S., King, E.G.C. (eds) Reading and the First World War. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137302717_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137302717_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-57059-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-30271-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)