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Words for Battle

Francine Stock begins her exploration of the culture of the Great War in 1914 with the mobilization of the word. Intellectuals and authors became seen as crucial to the war effort.

1: Words for Battle. Francine Stock begins her exploration of the culture of the Great War in 1914 with the mobilization of the word. For more than 40 years the next war to come had been a staple of fiction. England had been invaded, bombed and conquered before a shot had ever been fired in anger and now the war was upon us. What unfolded in the first weeks in the towns of villages of Belgium turned the war into a cultural struggle for survival and intellectuals and authors were soon seen as crucial to the war effort. From Arnold Bennett to Israel Zangwill, the literary giants of Edwardian England went to war.

Producer Mark Burman.

Available now

28 minutes

Last on

Sat 8 Mar 2014 10:30

Featured

  • August 1914 by John Masefield

    Masefield聮s first & only poem of the war

  • The Vigil by Henry Newbolt

    The first poem to see print after war was declared

  • Peace by Rubert Brooke

    Inspired by Brooke聮s experience of the evacuation of Antwerp, Oct 1914

  • With the Allies

    Richard Harding Davis

  • Thoughts On This War

    John Galsworthy (November 1914)

  • For All We Have & Are by Rudyard Kipling

    Kipling sounds the alarm in his poetic call to arms

  • The War to End War

    H.G. WELLS

  • Common Sense About The War

    GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

  • Belgium by Edith Wharton

    Written especially for King Albert聮s Book

  • Sonnet on the Belgian Expatriation

    T. HARDY

  • For The Fallen by Laurence Binyon

    Written in September 1914

Broadcast

  • Sat 8 Mar 2014 10:30

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