Memory, Narrative and the Great War
Rifleman Patrick MacGill and the Construction of Wartime Experience
Distributed for Liverpool University Press
227 pages
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3 halftones
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6 x 9
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© 2013
Memory, Narrative and the Great War examines the varied and complex war writings of Patrick MacGill within a contemporary framework. David Taylor tracks how MacGill shifted from heroic wartime narratives in his autobiographical writings to the pessimistic, guiltridden characters in his postwar novel, Fear!, and play, Suspense. Using these texts to show how MacGill remembered and reremembered his wartime experiences, Taylor analyzes MacGill’s writings with implications for a broader interpretation of Great War literature, highlighting wartime memory and narrative as an ever-changing kaleidoscope in which pieces of memory take on different—but equally valid—shapes with the passing of time.
Keith Grieves, Kingston University
“With clarity, structure, consistency of argument, and a deep awareness of the literary and historical analysis of the Great War, the case is well made. . . .that a study of Patrick MacGill’s writings illuminates the narrative constructions of wartime experience within the context of changing perspectives on ‘writing up’ the war through the twentieth century.”
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
List of Illustrations
Introduction: The Problem with Pat
Part I: The Broader Context
1. Some Changing Perspectives on the Great War
2. Memories and Narratives of War
3. Sources: Some Problems and Findings
Part II: The War Writings of Patrick MacGill
4. At the Front: Fighting and Writing the War
5. Writing the War from the Home Front
6. The War in Retrospect
Conclusion: Changing Perspectives and Coming to Terms with the War
Select Bibliography
Index
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History: European History | Military History
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