British Women Writers of World War II : Battlegrounds of Their Own

In British Women Writers of World War II, Phyllis Lassner offers a challenging analysis of politicized literature in which such British women writers as Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Stevie Smith and Storm Jameson debated the `justness'of World War II. Lassner questions prevailing approaches to women's war writing by exploring the complex range of pacifist and activist literary forms of women who redefined such pieties as patriotism and duty and heroism and victimization. In British Women Writers of World War II, Phyllis Lassner offers a challenging analysis of British women's literature of the 1930s and 40s in which they debated the `justness' of a Second World War. Through close readings of women's complex range of pacifist and activist roles and writing, Lassner questions prevailing approaches to the subject of women and war. As she shows women writers redefining traditional pieties of patriotism and duty and categories of hero and victim, prevailing political labels as conservative and liberal are also called into question. Drawing upon fiction, essays, and memoirs, Lassner explores the war writing of such well known figures as Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, and Stevie Smith in relation to equally powerful representations of war by Naomi Mitchison and Olivia Manning and by many rediscovered women writers, including Storm Jameson and Phyllis Bottome An exploration of the WWII-era writings of writers such as Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Stevie Smith, Olivia Manning, and Storm Jameson. Lassner (women's studies and Jewish studies, Northwestern U.) offers a challenging analysis of British women's literature in the 1930s and 1940s. She argues that women writers redefined the traditional pieties of patriotism and duty, as well as the categories of "hero" and "victim,", "liberal" and "conservative." Lassner's source materials included the writers' fiction, essays, and memoirs. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or. Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-23 ‘Differences that Divide and Bind’....Pages 24-57 From Fascism in Britain to World War: Dystopic Warnings....Pages 58-103 Dystopic Visions of Hitler’s Victory: ‘The Future is Our Business’....Pages 104-126 No Place Like Home: The British Home Front....Pages 127-166 ‘Perpetual Civil War’: Domestic Fictions of Britain’s Fate....Pages 167-190 Fictions of the European Home Front: Keeping Faith with the Conquered....Pages 191-215 Defending Europe’s Others....Pages 216-252 Back Matter....Pages 253-293 In British Women Writers of World War II, Phyllis Lassner offers a challenging analysis of politicized literature in which such British women writers as Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Stevie Smith and Storm Jameson debated the `justness' of World War II. Lassner questions prevailing approaches to women's war writing by exploring the complex range of pacifist and activist literary forms of women who redefined such pieties as patriotism and duty and heroism and victimization Phyllis Lassner. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 285-288) And Index.