Trauma, Primitivism and the First World War

Joy Porter is Professor of Indigenous History at the University of Hull, UK and Leverhulme Major Research Fellow, 2019-2022.

• Chapter 1: Being Frank Prewett Chapter 2: The Complicated Experience of Combat in the First World War Chapter 3: “Shell-Shock” Chapter 4: Primitivism, “Toronto” Prewett & Dr William Halse Rivers Rivers (1864-1922)Chapter 5: Adopting the “Toronto” Personality at Lennel & Meeting Siegfried Sassoon Chapter 6: Prewett’s Friendship with Robert Graves & Trauma PoetryChapter 7: An “Iroquois” at Oxford and Garsington Chapter 8: Repatriated to Suburbanizing Canada: November 1919- January 1921Chapter 9: “Mad in the Peace”: Farming & Trauma Poetry Chapter 10: Prewett Responds to Changes in the LandChapter 11: Conclusion: Protest Memory and Soft Primitivism

Buried alive in April 1918, during the massive German offensive on the Western front, Frank Prewett clawed his way back to life and to poetry. He breathed the war into his verse and into his fragmented post-war identities. This book provides a poignant portrait of a life lived in the shadow of the trenches and marked indelibly by the performative language of shell shock.