The Flower of Battle

The impress of war upon literature is illuminated with uncommon skill as Cecil (Clever Hearts) observes 12 writers, British and Irish, whose lives and careers were defined by their experiences in WWI. Many of their names may not be as well known today as those of fellow writer-combatants Siegfried Sassoon or Wilfred Owen, but Gilbert Frankau, R.H. Mottram, Robert Keable and their contemporaries were widely read in the interwar period. Like their famed colleagues, they sought to tell the truth about an experience for which there was no frame of reference. They remembered horror, comradeship and grief, and while they carved postwar paths for themselves, they also mourned a way of life forever lost in the trenches. Cecil groups his authors into three types. One, exemplified by Richard Aldington, saw the war as unredeemed suffering and unnecessary sacrifice. Another, including Frankau and Herbert Read, found meaning in courage tested and duty performed. A third, among whom is Richard Blaker, spoke for the ""generation of the broken-hearted,"" who remained locked within their wartime experiences. Ably combining literary criticism and social history, Cecil shows how the malevolent petals of the ""flower of battle"" cast an entire literary generation into shadow. (May)