Disciplines
Linguistics and Literature (100%)
Keywords
First World War,
French Poetry,
Trauma Studies,
Memory Studies,
Testimonial literature,
Combatant Poets
Abstract
The study examines poems written by French soldiers of the Grande Guerre, which
express the extreme experience of the trench warfare and function as a medium of
accusation. In addition to canonised works such as Apollinaire`s, Cocteau`s and Drieu La
Rochelle`s, little-known and forgotten texts are also examined and made accessible in the
appendix.
The focus lies on the question of the characteristics and possibilities of poetry as
testimonial literature, questions about poetry as an expression of inner processes of
change, the question of the representability of unresolved, traumatic experiences and
memories as well as questions about the specific possibilities of lyrical representation of
war experiences.