Course Details in 2025/26 Session

Module Title	LH After the Deluge: Writing and Recovery after the First World War
School	Eng, Drama, & Creative Studies
Department	English Literature
Module Code	09 30646
Module Lead	David Griffith
Level	Honours Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 2
Pre-requisites
Co-requisites
Restrictions	None
Contact Hours	Lecture-10 hours Seminar-20 hours Guided independent study-170 hours Total: 200 hours
Exclusions
Description	No aspect of British intellectual and artistic life was untouched by the upheavals brought about by the First World War – ‘a crack across the table of History’ as Ford Madox Ford called it. This module looks at responses by some of the most significant writers of the inter-war years as they sought to understand the war’s personal, literary, and cultural significance. It focuses upon four authors who fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and who returned, literally and metaphorically, to make sense of their various war experiences for years afterwards. The module opens with the poetry and autobiographical fiction of Siegfried Sassoon (the Sherston trilogy, 1928-36) and his close friend Robert Graves (Goodbye to All That, 1929). It then turns to two of the most challenging, and rewarding, modernist texts of the period: Ford Madox Ford’s multi-volume Parade’s End (1924-28), arguably the finest novel about the First World War, and David Jones’s epic prose-poem In Parenthesis (1937), a fusion of contemporary history and myth described by T.S. Eliot as a ‘work of genius’. Throughout the module we will explore how these writers reconfigured traditional categories of writing – fiction, memoir, autobiography, chronicle, lyric poetry and verse narrative – as they sought appropriate modes of self-representation, reflection and remembrance. We will make extensive use of the texts that surround these key works, especially the authors’ own letters, diaries and essays, as well as the body of literary criticism they have inspired. Students will also be encouraged to explore wider contexts for these works, including the authors’ literary networks and significant social and political issues such as female suffrage and conscientious objection. This module may be taken by students who also choose ‘Remembering World War One’ without fear of overlap.
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the works of the key authors studied on the module, from different class, gender, national, cultural, and political perspectives. demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the significance of subsequent memoirs, letters and associated material in relation to the creation of the works. critically analyse these writings and frame arguments about them with appropriate historical knowledge and within appropriate literary critical contexts, demonstrating close reading skills. demonstrate knowledge and understanding of these writers’ major sources, as appropriate. synthesise and evaluate themes and topics across the range of materials covered on the module.
Assessment	30646-01 : 4,000 Word Essay : Coursework (100%)
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	Assessment: 4,000 word essay Reassessment: 4,000 word essay (extenuating circumstances only)
Other
Reading List