UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA
School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
UG Main Series Examination 2013-14
THE LITERATURE OF WORLD WAR ONE
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Time Allowed: 2 hours
Do not turn over until you are told to do so by the invigilator.
Notes are not permitted in this examination.
Answer TWO questions. In each answer you must comment on at least TWO texts.
Note: For the purpose of this paper, ‘literature’ can be interpreted as non-fictional
writing of any kind, i.e. letters, memoir, diary material, newspaper text, official
discourse and so on, as well as fictional literature.
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Module Contact: Dr Tim Marshall, LDC
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1. ‘For everyone – the soldiers and those they left behind – the war was, in varying
degrees, a transformative experience. It changed the way they thought about
themselves and their relationship with the imperial centre. After it was over, things
would never be the same again.’ (Patrick Bishop)
How does the literature of World War One comment on this proposition?
2. ‘The experience of the Great War lent a new authority to eye-witnessing,
conscience and personal memoir’.
Discuss.
3. In what ways does the literature of World War One speak to the experience of
bereavement?
4. How does the literature of World War One comment on the then new phenomenon
of ‘shell shock’?
5. ‘The trauma of war was not confined only to the theatre of battle.’
Discuss.
6. ‘The soldier-poets were shell-shocked Georgians, their aesthetic assumptions
having rendered them particularly vulnerable to the front’s unimagined brutalities;
Modernists, meanwhile, were experimenters, responding with appropriate urgency
to a broken world.’ (Tim Kendall)
Discuss.
7. How does the literature of World War One represent the everyday life of the
soldier and his comrades?
8. ‘A major theme of World War One writing is the disconnection between those who
fought and those who did not’.
Discuss.
9. ‘Patriotism is not enough.’ (Edith Cavell)
How does the literature of World War One comment on this proposition?
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10. What place does satire and/or comedy have in World War One writing?
11. Why is a focus on social class such a feature of World War One writing?
12. In what ways does World War One writing participate in the construction of
cultural memory?
END OF PAPER
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