A Civil War of Words

The Great War did not only mark the history of the twentieth century: to a large extent, the conflict also affected culture and literature in Europe and the rest of the world. This collection of essays aims to provide the reader with a broad and transdisciplinary perspective on the cultural and political impact of the Great War. Using a comparative approach and focusing on Catalonia and Spain, this volume reflects the enormous variety of representations of the -theatre of war- in both neutral and belligerent countries, causing a significant rejuvenation in fiction and journalistic genres in the subsequent decades. This book features essays by some of the most important specialists in the First World War from Spain, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Latin America, who, in the centenary of the conflict, provide an innovative critical approach to this crucial event in contemporary history.

Xavier Pla is Senior Lecturer of Catalan Contemporary Literature and Theory of Literature and Head of the Department of Philology and Communication at Universitat de Girona. The main focus of his research is on diaries, memoirs, everyday-life literature and, more specifically, literary journalism in interwar Europe. He has edited and written introductions for many volumes by Eugeni d-Ors, Josep Pla, Eugeni Xammar, Jorge Semprún or Claudio Magris. Maximiliano Fuentes is Associate Lecturer of Contemporary History at Universitat de Girona. He specializes in the political relations between Spain and France during the Great War, Spanish intellectuals and the war, and cultural relations between Argentina and Spain during the first decades of the twentieth century. Francesc Montero is Assistant Scholar of Contemporary Literature and project manager at Universitat de Girona. His research focuses mainly on literary journalism under the Spanish Republic and before and after the Spanish civil war.

Contents: Xavier Pla/Maximiliano Fuentes Codera/Francesc Montero: Introduction - José Álvarez Junco: Europe before and after the Great War - Xosé M. Núñez Seixas: Some Reflections on the Great War and the Nationality Question in Europe - Patrizia Dogliani: A Civil War of Words in Italy: Italian intellectuals from Interventionism into WWI to Engagement into Fascism - Ana Paula Pires: The Sound of the Mind: Portuguese Intellectuals and the First World War - María Inés Tato: The Latin American Intellectual Field in the Face of the First World War: An Initial Approach - Vita Fortunati: Controversial Memories in the Discourse/ Narrative of World War I - Miquel Berga: Fought in Narrative: English Literature and the Cultural Memory of World War I - Mireia Llorens Ruiz: From Arcadia to Armageddon: Literary Conventions and Transgressions in the Work of Siegfried Sassoon - Antonio Monegal: Shell-Shocked Legacies: Narratives of Trauma in Virginia Woolf, W. H. R. Rivers and Pat Barker - Maximiliano Fuentes Codera: The Great War as an Expression of the Dispute between the «Two Spains» - Paul Aubert: The Motives of Francophilia: History of a Frustration - Xavier Pla: «A war is a volcano»: Theorists of War, Journalists in the Trenches and Intellectual Positions from Barcelona during the Great War - José Ramón González: Toward a Pro-Ally Collective Imagination: Spanish Writers in the Face of the Great War - August Rafanell: The Squadron of the Star: Catalan War Poetry - Enric Bou: Witnesses to an 'Apocalyptic Storm': Catalan Intellectuals and the Great War - David Jiménez Torres: Janus's Relevance: Ramiro de Maeztu and the Great War - Àngel Duarte/Francesc Montero: Fighting and Writing for Catalonia and France: Frederic Pujulà and the Catalan Volunteers in the Trenches - Joan Safont Plumed: Amadeu Hurtado at the Iberia Magazine: A Mainstay of Catalan Francophilia.