News of War

Civilian Poetry 1936-1945

Rachel Galvin

Argues that even poems that do not directly comment on war can evoke civilian relationships to distant fighting
Examines the poetry of César Vallejo, W.H. Auden, Wallace Stevens, Raymond Queneau, Marianne Moore, and Gertrude Stein
Presents the idea that these poets experienced a crisis of conscience during wartime, which in turn significantly influenced their writing

News of War

Civilian Poetry 1936-1945

Rachel Galvin

Description

From the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War until the end of World War II, many poets around the world felt an obligation to write about the wars of their time. Famed poets like Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, and Ivor Gurney had earned their literary authority because of their experience fighting in the trenches during World War I, but civilian poets who wished to write about warfare doubted their own authority to write about the battles from afar. In News of War, Professor Rachel Galvin argues that this standard is a strongly gendered norm that is problematic for women writers, who were much less likely to have firsthand experience with war. Galvin indicates that the predicament of writing war without witnessing war is exemplified by six of the most prominent poets of the time: a Spanish-language poet, César Vallejo; a French-language poet, Raymond Queneau; and four English-language poets, W. H. Auden, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and Gertrude Stein.

Although scholars have previously observed the anxieties of civilian poets writing about war, especially in the literature of World War I, Galvin gives the topic a new emphasis by developing the idea that the poets are in dialogue with journalism of the time and developing a framework within which to see their formal patterns for grappling with war at a distance. Expanding on the work of previous scholars who have written on poetry's relation to the news, News of War develops the idea of a strong tendency toward aesthetic self-reflexivity and ethical self-scrutiny in the poetry of the war.

News of War

Civilian Poetry 1936-1945

Rachel Galvin

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One: Flesh Made Word: César Vallejo and the Spanish Civil War
Chapter Two: W.H. Auden: Rushing to the Pumps, or Not, in Spain and China
Chapter Three: W.H. Auden during World War II
Chapter Four: Wallace Stevens in a “Sudden Time”
Chapter Five: Raymond Queneau, Reading the Poor Paper
Chapter Six: Marianne Moore and the Eyewitness Bind
Chapter Seven: Gertrude Stein and the War She Saw
Epilogue
Works Cited

News of War

Civilian Poetry 1936-1945

Rachel Galvin

Author Information

Rachel Galvin, Assistant Professor of English, University of Chicago

Rachel Galvin is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Chicago. She is a scholar, poet, and translator. Her essays appear in Boston Review, Comparative Literature Studies, ELH, Jacket 2, Los Angeles Review of Books, MLN, and Modernism/modernity.

News of War

Civilian Poetry 1936-1945

Rachel Galvin

Reviews and Awards

"News of War contributes to a growing body of scholarship that seeks to include civilian writing in the canon of twentieth-century war literature...The persuasiveness of Galvin's book, however, is no mere rhetorical trick: it rests on impressive archival work and thorough knowledge of the critical landscape. Her experience as a poet and linguist informs an impressive ability to crack open familiar poems, reading them afresh with compellingly revisionist results." - Rosie Langridge, University of Plymouth, Modern Language Review

"News of War is a remarkably original work and brings together two different forces in current literary criticism." - Leo Mellor, Literature & History

"This book, however, goes beyond poetry or literature. It explains how press and daily news influenced these authors and their poetry, because they could not experience firsthand the events that were happening in the war fronts ... Poetry written back in the decades of 1930 and 1940 brings to the table both context and sociohistorical aspects and opens the door to contemporary poetry which observes more recent wars and events." - Loarre Andreu Perez, Communication Booknotes Quarterly

"The international and multilingual scope of the book will present challenges for readers not already deeply conversant with modernist poetics, but the rewards for following Galvin's excursions are plentiful. ... Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." - D. C. Maus, CHOICE