Merchants of Hope

Rosa M Bracco

• Introduction - irony, modernism and tradition - modes of interpretation; irony and modern memory, tradition triumphant - echoes of the past in war literature, modernists versus traditionalists, the middlebrow novel; the Baedeker of the memory of war, mapping out the terrain of the interwar years. Part 1 The accountability of imagination: social background and non literary occupation, the intimate world of publishing, the testimony of the "Old guard", fiction as history, writing with a purpose, the English memory of war, "Morality" as a strategy of social and political renewal, safeguarding the individual against the mob, the middle of the road. Part 2 The invisible hand of the cause: the strength of inarticulate patriotism, the enemy, disenchantment in the novels of the late 1920s and 1930s, personal war. Part 3 "Standards are Different Here" - war recasts identity: the separate world of the men at war; fear, communion with the dead, spiritual language, homefront; conscientious objectors, defining English identity against German character, women and war, a generation apart. Part 4 The quest for continuity: preserving the past; the old order reabsorption into the old pattern, military tradition. Part 5 The theatre of war - "Journey's End": the plot of "Journey's End"; journey to success; the response of the press, the experience of 2nd Lieutenant Sherriff, Sherriff's literary reconstruction of his war experience; Sherriff and Hibbert, the public-school matrix of "Journey's End", the play's title, the "war consciousness" of "Journey's End", providing a social message; simplicity as a style of life and literature, revisited rather than revived. Conclusion: summary, the centre can hold.

'She shows an extensive knowledge of novels in her field and discusses intelligently attempts by writers of limited talent to extract some meaning from experiences of previously unequalled horror.'Review of English Studies'Rosa Bracco's book is an investigation into what a reading of minor British writers of fiction dealing with the First World War can tell us about 'the English memory of the Great War'. [...] Bracco's book is based on thorough research and offers interesting insights.'AUMLA'Rosa Maria Bracco has performed a valuable service for those engaged with the literary history of the 1920s and 1930s. (...) She...has porduced an informative and highly readable survey.'The Year's Work in English StudiesThe Year's Work in English Studies'(a) fascinating study...the chapter on R.C.Sheriff's Journey End...is a penetrating and insightful analysis of the ambiguities inherent in this influential play.'Canadian Military History