Boys in khaki, girls in print: women's literary responses to the great war, 1914-1918

This thesis explores the ways in which women interpreted the Great War as it happened and focuses on texts written and published between 1914 and 1918.

The characteristic motifs and language of First World War literature were not spontaneous products of the 4^th of August 1914. Chapter One shows how they were reinterpretations of ideology disseminated over time through popular literature and social contemporary.

On the outbreak of war, government and publishers acted quickly to sustain morale, to generate as well as cater to the interests of the reading public. The propaganda that was transmitted and which influenced literary responses is highlighted by Chapter Two.

The romance novels discussed in Chapter Three follow a pattern in which the aspirations of heroes and heroines are thwarted - then fulfilled - by the events of the War. Such 'light entertainment' makes highly-charged claims for the regenerative power and the righteousness of Britain's sacrifice.

Nationalistic verse of the period was as sentimental and melodramatic as the romance novels, but Chapter Four concentrates on the poetry by women that eschews patriotic rhetoric and reflects, instead, upon grief and the inability to express adequately the emotions it engendered.