Touch and Intimacy in First World War Literature - Hardcover

Das, Santanu

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052184603X ISBN 13: 9780521846035

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2006

Synopsis

War writing is haunted by experiences of physical contact: from the muddy realities of the front to the emotional intensity of trench life. Through extensive archival and historical research, analyzing previously unknown letters and diaries alongside literary writings by figures such as Owen and Brittain, Santanu Das recovers the sensuous world of the First World War trenches and hospitals. This original and evocative study alters our understanding of the period as well as of the body at war, and illuminates the perilous intimacy between sense experience, emotion and language as we try to make meaning in times of crisis.

About this title

Book Description:

The First World War ravaged the male body on an unprecedented scale, yet soldiers experienced moments of great tenderness and physical intimacy in the trenches. Touch, the most elusive and private of the senses, became central to the traumatic experience of war. Through extensive archival and historical research, analysing previously unknown letters and diaries alongside literary texts such as the poetry of Wilfred Owen, Santanu Das opens up new ways of understanding First World War writing through an intimate history of how war was experienced by the body.

About the Author:

Santanu Das is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 052184603X
• ISBN 13: 9780521846035
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 284