The Embattled Self: French Soldiers' Testimony of the Great WarHow did the soldiers in the trenches of the Great War understand and explain battlefield experience, and themselves through that experience? Situated at the intersection of military history and cultural history, The Embattled Self draws on the testimony of French combatants to explore how combatants came to terms with the war. In order to do so, they used a variety of narrative tools at hand—rites of passage, mastery, a character of the soldier as a consenting citizen of the Republic. None of the resulting versions of the story provided a completely consistent narrative, and all raised more questions about the "truth" of experience than they answered. Eventually, a story revolving around tragedy and the soldier as victim came to dominate—even to silence—other types of accounts. In thematic chapters, Leonard V. Smith explains why the novel structured by a specific notion of trauma prevailed by the 1930s. Smith canvasses the vast literature of nonfictional and fictional testimony from French soldiers to understand how and why the "embattled self" changed over time. In the process, he undermines the conventional understanding of the war as tragedy and its soldiers as victims, a view that has dominated both scholarly and popular opinion since the interwar period. The book is important reading not only for traditional historians of warfare but also for scholars in a variety of fields who think critically about trauma and the use of personal testimony in literary and historical studies. |
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... August 1915. While today this strikes me as somewhat obvious, Norton Cru's observation had a profound influence on my dissertation and my first book. But that was not the end of my encounter with Norton Cru, who subsequently was ...
... made me see what really matters in life. Ann is my joy, and I am proud to dedicate this book to her. L. V. S. Cleveland Heights, Ohio August 2006 Introduction EXPERIENCE, NARRATIVE, AND NARRATOR IN THE GREAT WAR This.
... a translator for the British army. After the defeat of 1940, he retired to his home in the Unoccupied Zone in Aix-en-Provence, where he wrote nothing at all between June 1940 and August 1943. Thereafter, however, he began to.
... August 1943. Thereafter, however, he began to write prolifically and published four autobiographical books in as many years, some of his best-known prose.8 All of these books treated Cendrars's experience in the Great War, La Main ...
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The Embattled Self: French Soldiers' Testimony of the Great War Leonard V. Smith Limited preview - 2014 |
The Embattled Self: French Soldiers' Testimony of the Great War Leonard V. Smith Limited preview - 2007 |
The Embattled Self: French Soldiers' Testimony of the Great War Leonard V. Smith No preview available - 2014 |