The Cambridge Companion to the Poetry of the First World War Cambridge Companions to Literature Series

The poetry of the First World War remains a singularly popular and powerful body of work. This Companion brings together leading scholars in the field to re-examine First World War poetry in English at the start of the centennial commemoration of the war. It offers historical and critical contexts, fresh readings of the important soldier-poets, and investigations of the war poetry of women and civilians, Georgians and Anglo-American modernists and of poetry from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the former British colonies. The volume explores the range and diversity of this body of work, its rich afterlife and the expanding horizons and reconfiguration of the term 'First World War Poetry'. Complete with a detailed chronology and guide to further reading, the Companion concludes with a conversation with three poets - Michael Longley, Andrew Motion and Jon Stallworthy - about why and how the war and its poetry continue to resonate with us.

Part I. Historical and Critical Contexts: Reconfiguring First World War poetry: an introduction Santanu Das; 1. First World War poetry: a cultural landscape Vincent Sherry; 2. Poetic form and the First World War Peter Howarth; Part II. 'Soldier-Poets': 3. Early poets of the First World War Elizabeth Vandiver; 4. Later poets of the First World War Mark Rawlinson; 5. Siegfried Sassoon Sarah Cole; 6. Isaac Rosenberg Neil Corcoran; 7. Wilfred Owen Sandra Gilbert; 8. Edward Thomas and Ivor Gurney Edna Longley; 9. David Jones Adrian Poole; Part III. Archipelagic, Commonwealth and Civilian Poetry: 10. Archipelagic poetry of the First World War David Goldie; 11. Colonial poetry of the First World War Simon Featherstone; 12. Women's poetry of the First World War Margaret Higonnet; 13. Civilian war poetry: Hardy and Kipling Tim Kendall; 14. First World War and modernist poetry: Pound and Eliot Christine Froula; Part IV. Afterlives of First World War Poetry: 15. 'But that is not new': poetic legacies of the First World War Jay Winter; 16. A conversation: Michael Longley, Andrew Motion and Jon Stallworthy Santanu Das; Guide to further reading; Index.

Santanu Das is Reader in English at King's College London, and was educated at Presidency College, Kolkata, and St John's College, Cambridge. He is the author of Touch and Intimacy in First World War Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and the editor of Race, Empire and First World War Writing (Cambridge University Press, 2011). He has published in journals such as Modernism/Modernity, Textual Practice, and Essays in Criticism.