[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
In Flander's Fields...
Hey all--
I deleted Mark's question (Would you fight), but it reminded me of an
interesting book I'm reading, called "The Great War and Modern Memory,"
which deals with how World War I changed our national and international
consciousness (and explores this issue by looking at our pre- and postwar
literature).
One of the things this author says (Paul Fussar? Fussal? (sp)) is that if
you had proposed to a fellow in the summer of 1914 that Honor, Glory, and
Duty were meaningless words, he wouldn't have the foggiest idea what you
meant-- the reason being that it wasn't until after the horror of WWI that
these themes began to appear in our collective understanding. "A Farewell
To Arms" couldn't have been written before WWI, because it just wouldn't
have occured to anyone to write such a thing.
'Battle' was so tied to the idea of 'Sport' that British front lines used
to kick a football ahead of them as they rushed No Man's Land. Then the
Germans poured out of their trenches and mowed them down with machine guns.
Before WWI, the word 'machine' was not immediately associated with the word
'gun'.
Anyway, my sense of honor, glory and duty to country being about 90 years
underdeveloped, I am loathe to fight any war. Any war.
jnf