Book contents
- War and Literary Studies
- Cambridge Critical Concepts
- War and Literary Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: War, Literature, and the History of Knowledge
- Part I Origins and Theories
- Part II Foundational Concepts
- Chapter 8 War and Language
- Chapter 9 War and Aesthetics
- Chapter 10 War and Historicity
- Chapter 11 War and Sensation
- Chapter 12 War and Civilians
- Chapter 13 War and Trauma
- Chapter 14 War and Religion
- Chapter 15 War and Gender
- Part III Emerging Concepts
- Index
Chapter 10 - War and Historicity
from Part II - Foundational Concepts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2023
- War and Literary Studies
- Cambridge Critical Concepts
- War and Literary Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: War, Literature, and the History of Knowledge
- Part I Origins and Theories
- Part II Foundational Concepts
- Chapter 8 War and Language
- Chapter 9 War and Aesthetics
- Chapter 10 War and Historicity
- Chapter 11 War and Sensation
- Chapter 12 War and Civilians
- Chapter 13 War and Trauma
- Chapter 14 War and Religion
- Chapter 15 War and Gender
- Part III Emerging Concepts
- Index
Summary
Drawing on literary works from the Revolutionary Wars (Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orleans and Kleist’s Hermannsschlacht), the First World War (Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen nichts Neues and Ernst Jünger’s In Stahlgewittern), the Second World War (Christa Wolf's Kindheitsmuster) and the recent Iraq War (Handke’s Yugoslavia essays and Jelinek’s Bambiland), this chapter argues that the perception of specific historical wars is marked by distinct configurations of time and historicity. Literary representations of the Revolutionary Wars tend to conceive of war within a gradual unfolding of national destiny. Depictions of the First World War chafe against linear concepts of time and against concepts of temporal homogeneity. Representations of the Second World War radically deconstruct concepts of linearity and teleology. Here, time is a web in which the past impinges on the present and the present impacts the future. Both Handke’s and Jelinek’s texts, finally, are characterized by a detachment or even alienation from time and space occasioned by the mediatization of warfare on television and the web.
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- War and Literary Studies , pp. 168 - 183Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023