Exploring the use of London imagery, this book considers how literature redirects attention to individual, subjective experience at a time of enforced co-operation, uniformity and community. Unlike government information films and news broadcasts, which often used London to prop up prevailing clichés and stereotypes, and encouraged patriotic support for the war, literature had the freedom to express more recalcitrant truths. London writing of the 1940s was not a literature of opposition or dissent, but in offering more nuanced depictions of the period, it was a counterweight to propaganda and the general war temperament. In writing, the city becomes a more complex place, no longer the easy symbol of defiance and stoicism, of the shared sacrifice of ration book and war work.
Exploring the use of London imagery, this book considers how literature redirects attention to individual, subjective experience at a time of enforced co-operation, uniformity and community. Unlike government information films and news broadcasts, which often used London to prop up prevailing clichés and stereotypes, and encouraged patriotic support for the war, literature had the freedom to express more recalcitrant truths. London writing of the 1940s was not a literature of opposition or dissent, but in offering more nuanced depictions of the period, it was a counterweight to propaganda and the general war temperament. In writing, the city becomes a more complex place, no longer the easy symbol of defiance and stoicism, of the shared sacrifice of ration book and war work.
Reading London in Wartime: Blitz, the People and Propaganda in 1940s Literature
232
Reading London in Wartime: Blitz, the People and Propaganda in 1940s Literature
232
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780367890568 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
| Publication date: | 12/10/2019 |
| Series: | Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature |
| Pages: | 232 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) |