Women’s Poetry, War and Modernism

Spanning two World Wars, three nations and two continents this book traces the relationships and considers the representation of the events and experiences of these conflicts by four women poets; Winifred Letts, Lola Ridge, H.D. and Sheila Wingfield. Adopting a comparative approach to these writers, this book examines how they endeavoured to make poetic sense of the unfolding narrative of the two wars, each writing while the fighting was underway. Spanning two wars and two continents it traces the relationships between the lives and wartime poetry of these four women writers, none of whom easily fits into the worlds they occupied. Adopting a transnational approach this book examines the ways in which these writers create a literary space of mutual understanding and shared concern in their responses to the trauma, violence and upheaval of a world at war.