War, women, and poetry, 1914-1945

War, Women, and Poetry examines the experience of European women, especially British and German women, in World Wars I and II and the literature they wrote in reaction to those wars. Author Joan Montgomery Byles asks what the impact of war was upon women's lives, and she focuses on how women writers of both poetry and prose represented these wars in their writing. The study is both literary and historical and seeks to interweave the historical circumstances of these wars with women's and men's literary response, particularly the poetic response. In comparing the war poetry of men and women, the reader can see important differences and important similarities. The book then examines how the social-historical situation of war manifests itself in artistic expression: but of necessity, it also looks at the actual historical events themselves.