Course Details in 2025/26 Session

Module Title	LH Remembering World War One
School	Eng, Drama, & Creative Studies
Department	English Literature
Module Code	09 26674
Module Lead
Level	Honours Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 1
Pre-requisites
Co-requisites
Restrictions	None
Exclusions
Description	Launched in the centenary year of the start of the First World War, this module offers students the opportunity to encounter the shock of the war - its historical, cultural and psychological enormity and incomprehensibility - as it was expressed by writers who experienced it and lived through its aftermath, as well as to explore and critically analyse the continuing significance of the War and its cultural mythology within literary history from 1914 to the present day. They will be exposed to a range of moments in the articulation and representation of the War, from the voices preserved in the poetry of 1914-18, across the curious imaginative silence of the early post-war years to the flood of memoirs and autobiographical prose fiction that appeared in the mid to late 1920s, to the historical representations that began to appear from the 1960s, to our contemporary moment of remembrance and memorialisation as marked by 2014. Framed by a reading of Timothy Findley’s historical novel The Wars (1977), the module will encourage students to reflect upon the ways in which they themselves approach, represent and ‘remember’ the War in the act of historical research and literary criticism. Other texts taught are likely to include a selection from the following novels, memoirs, plays and poetry collections, alongside letters, diaries and other ephemera: poetry from the trenches and the home front [from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive at http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/ and Tim Kendall, Poetry of the First World War: An Anthology (OUP 2013), and Catherine Reilly, Scars Upon My Heart: Women's Poetry and Verse of the First World War (Virago, 2006)], Rebecca West, Return of the Soldier (1918), Ford Madox Ford, No More Parades (1925), R.C. Sheriff, Journey’s End (1928), Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929), Frederic Manning, The Middle Parts of Fortune (1929), Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That (1929), Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero (1929), Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (1929; 1929 Wheen translation), Helen Zenna Smith, Not So Quiet ... (1930), Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930), Theatre Workshop, Oh, What a Lovely War! (1963), Susan Hill, Strange Meeting (1971), and Pat Barker, Regeneration (1991). Students will also have the opportunity in the workshop sessions to see original film footage from World War One, and to work with some of the World War One archive holdings in the University of Birmingham’s Research and Cultural collections
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a wide range of poetry and prose writings from and about the First World War, from both the battlefield and the home front, and from different class, gender, national and political perspectives. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of writings from the war period 1914-1918, subsequent memoirs, and later historical fictions and re-conceptualizations. Critically analyse these writings and frame arguments about them with appropriate historical knowledge and within appropriate literary critical contexts, demonstrating close reading skills. Recognise and critically examine the role of memory, remembrance and memorialisation in the writing of the First World War.
Assessment	26674-01 : 4,000 Word Essay : Coursework (100%)
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	Assessments: For module running in Semester 1: 1 x 4,000 word essay / For module running in Semester 2: 1 x 3hr exam (seen paper) Reassessment: As above in extenuating circumstances
Other
Reading List