Fighting Songs and Warring Words: Popular Lyrics of Two World Wars

In the century which has been dominated by two world wars, from both of which arose a prodigious amount of poetry, 'war poetry' and 'war poet' have become everyday literary terms. Yet the accepted canon of war poetry covers only a very limited range of the lyrics which have been written about war in the twentieth century, underlining patriotic or nationalistic views, mocking the enemy and the enemy leaders, and providing comfort for both the soldiers and those left at home. With the inclusion of material rarely included in studies and anthologies, such as Nazi poetry and song, the poetry of the atomic bomb, and music hall lyrics, the book opens up the view of war poetry in the twentieth century. It extends 'lyric' to its original sense of song and printed poem, and reminds us that poetry was used on both sides during the wars of this century. This apparently rather specialized book has, in fact, a great deal to offer. It is clearly and briskly written and is genuinely comparative in approach.