Literature: Writers of the Second World War

In Britain the literature of the Great War has tended to eclipse our knowledge of those writers associated with WW2. This course will seek to redress this perception, and to extend its remit beyond Britain to consider the responses of European writers to the 1939-45 conflict. Thus, we will explain German, French, Russian and East European authors, considering extracts drawn from a range of poetry and prose.

The course will reintroduce you to names you will be familiar with, as well as introducing you to others that you may not have encountered. Our authors will be both contemporary authors of the period and more recent authors considering the past retrospectively.

Authors will include: Evelyn Waugh, Elizabeth Bowen, Alun Lewis, Keith Douglas, Dylan Thomas, J.B. Priestly, Czslaw Milosz, Anna Akhmatova, Henrich Boll, Primo Levi, and WG Sebald among many others, and these writers will bring into focus profound questions regarding identity, moral and ethical philosophy, and the erosion of individual and societal rights in totalitarian regimes.

The course will encourage you to discuss each chosen extract and will encourage you to further research into writers and themes. There is much to discuss in what will be lively classes.