The Peculiar Sanity of War: Hysteria in the Literature of World War ITexas Tech University Press, 2002 - 181 pages During wartime, paranoia, gossip, and rumor become accepted forms of behavior and dominant literary tropes. The Peculiar Sanity of War examines the impact of war hysteria on definitions of sanity and on standards of behavior during World War I. Drawing upon Joseph Conrad's comprehensive understanding of war's impact on soldiers and civilians alike, and extending Michel Foucault's construction of madness and reason, Kingsbury expands the definition of war neurosis to include peculiar sanity at home as well as on the front lines. While other investigations of World War I consider shell shock to be the only definable war madness, Kingsbury is the first to build a powerful argument around the insanity of the home front's vilification of the enemy. Ultimately, Kingsbury's study establishes peculiar sanity, among civilians and soldiers, as an inevitable response to war's madness. The Peculiar Sanity of War begins by locating the roots of war mania in Edwardian hypocrisy, then moves on to examine the way propaganda operates in nontraditional texts, such as housekeeping guides, and in the novels of Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, H. G. Wells, Rebecca West, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Rudyard Kipling, Virginia Woolf, and H. D. Celia Kingsbury's eloquent and moving book . . . brings together war and madness in unexpected ways. Beginning with a phrase from Joseph Conrad, she diagnoses the condition of a culture gone awry, a 'peculiar sanity.' . . . --from Laurence Davies's foreword |
Contents
SUPERFICIALITY AND REPRESSION Peculiar Sanity In Prewar Conventions | 1 |
Fear and Morality | 4 |
Fords The Good Soldier | 12 |
Fords The Good Soldier | 18 |
Conrads The Return | 21 |
INTO THE RABBIT HOLE | 35 |
Morality in America | 36 |
Cathers One of Ours | 39 |
Fords Parades End | 97 |
Conrads The Tale | 102 |
Conrads The Tale | 110 |
PSYCHIC STRESS AND PSYCHOBABBLE | 115 |
Memory | 121 |
Wests The Return of the Soldier | 122 |
Fords Parades End | 129 |
Civilians | 132 |
Another Prison Full of Screaming Hysterics | 43 |
Conrads Heart of Darkness | 48 |
THE EVE OF APOCALYPSE | 57 |
Reasoned Rhetoric | 59 |
Whartons A Son at the Front | 61 |
The War That Will End War | 72 |
Wellss Mr Britling Sees It Through | 74 |
SPIES AND LIES | 83 |
Blood and Kultur | 92 |
Fords Parades End | 95 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alvan Hervey American anti-German Ashburnham atrocity stories Bayliss becomes behavior believes British Britling Britling's calls Campton Chris Chris's Christopher Tietjens civilians civilization Claude Claude's clichés Commanding Officer convention D. H. Lawrence death Doubleday Dowell Dowell's Edith Wharton Edward Edwardian emotional enemy father fear Fiction Florence Ford Madox Ford Ford's France French Fussell George George's German Godsoe gossip Heart of Darkness Hervey's home front horror human hypocrisy Ibid Jenny Joseph Conrad killed kind Kipling's Kitty Kurtz Lawrence Leonora letter lives London madness Margaret Marlow Mary Postgate memory Nancy narrator Northman novel once Parade's End peculiar sanity poster propaganda Purity Crusade reality refers repression reprint Return Rudyard Kipling Ruggles rumor Samuel Hynes Saunders sexual shell shock ship social Soldier Spies and Lies Strangwick superficiality Sylvia Tale tells Tietjens's tion Trudi Tate truth Univ University Press Victorian Wheeler Wilfred Owen Willa Cather woman women words wounded writes York