Free Content 'A Merciful, Heaven-Sent Release'?: The Clerk And The First World War in British Literary Culture

Author: Wild, Jonathan1

Source: Cultural and Social History, Volume 4, Number 1, January 2007 , pp. 73-94(22)

Publisher: Berg Publishers

Key:
Free Content - Free Content
New Content - New Content
Subscribed Content - Subscribed Content
Free Trial Content - Free Trial Content

Abstract:

This article traces the profound social repercussions that resulted from the mass enlistment of British office workers into the armed forces during the First World War. Drawing heavily upon fictionalized autobiographies of the period, my study examines the various stages of the clerk's experience of the conflict and argues that the confidence gained during warfare by surviving office workers fundamentally shaped a more democratic postwar society. This change is evidenced, I argue, in the profile of the fictional clerk that emerges in British literature after 1918.

Keywords: OFFICE CLERK(S); WORLD WAR ONE; POPULAR LITERATURE AND HISTORY; TEMPORARY GENTLEMEN

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Department of English Literature, University of Edinburgh

Free content The full text is free.

View now:
download 'A Merciful, Heaven-Sent Release'?: The Clerk And The First World War in British Literary Culture 153.3kb 

Back to top

Key:
Free Content - Free Content
New Content - New Content
Subscribed Content - Subscribed Content
Free Trial Content - Free Trial Content
Share this item with others: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Page Help Click here for Page Help
Shopping cart
Tools
Sign in






Need to register?
Sign up here
Text size: A | A | A | A