How The Great War Affected Literature

The Great War was arguably the most important event to happen in modern times, its effects stretching to every country and its people. The war wasn’t the most destructive, but it did change how people thought; normalizing cynicism and resulting in a new view of life itself. Effects of the Great War were not only seen on the battlefield and newspapers, but it also influenced music, art, politics, and even the over-all atmosphere of each nation. But possibly most importantly, it influenced literature. I argue that the literature that came out of the Great War is important because it’s almost like looking through a time warp, and getting a glimpse of what it was actually like. And not through the official textbook version, but the raw, human
It was one that was all too grim, expressing the horrors the poets saw in the war themselves, and their reflections on the war. Some poets such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon are still popular today, due to the shocking and unfathomable accounts they recorded. In Owen’s, “Dulche et Decorum Est,” written in 1917, he paints us horrifying images of what he experienced in the war. He mentions the soldiers who were as sick as beggars, and, “drunk with fatigue.” Then, a scene of soldiers in a gas bomb attack, where the poet watched a fellow soldier die while trying to get to his mask on, and kept reliving the moment in his dreams, every night. He tells of having to throw the body onto a wagon, watching his face and hearing the blood gargle in the dead man’s lungs. He describes it as “Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.” Then ends his poem by saying he would never tell a young man, eager to go to war, “The old lie; Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” which can be roughly translated to, "It is sweet and glorious to die for one's
It enables us to see the war how it was in his mind and memories. He used this piece of fiction to reflect on and contemplate concepts such as morality, fear, courage, loss, despair, and comradery, just as many soldiers often during and after the war. (3) Ernest Hemingway was excited for the adventure of fighting in World War I. When he volunteered, he failed the vision test, so was an ambulance driver instead, allowing him to get up close and personal with death and injury. His experiences influenced many of his works, such as A Farewell to Arms, Soldier’s Home, and his collection titled In Our Time. Much of what Hemingway had to say about the war was in the form of the aftermath and returning home; “It deals with what happens to the soul in war and how people deal with that afterward.”