Touch and Intimacy in First World War Literature

by Santanu Das

War writing is haunted by experiences of physical contact: from the muddy realities of the front to the emotional intensity of trench life. Through extensive archival and historical research, analyzing previously unknown letters and diaries alongside literary writings by figures such as Owen and Brittain, Santanu Das recovers the sensuous world of the First World War trenches and hospitals. This original and evocative study alters our understanding of the period as well as of the body at war, and illuminates the perilous intimacy between sense experience, emotion and language as we try to make meaning in times of crisis.

Genres: World War I, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, History

284 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will become a regular reference book I'm sure. It introduced me to several authors and works of literature I was not familiar with. The language was clear and the voice was engaging. It was informative without being overly academic in tone. The majority of literature represented is that written from soldiers. The last chapters, however, are devoted to the nurses' writing about their experiences. Das raised several questions (directly and indirectly) which have and will inform my own research as a body-mind practitioner and writer. I look forward to owning a copy of this book and reading it a second (and third, fourth, etc.) time. It has been a few months since I finished my first pass and my memory of the details is not as strong as it could be, but here our some striking excerpts that I had transcribed in my notebook at the time:

"Vision, sound, and smell all carry the body beyond it's margin; tactile experience, by contrast, stubbornly adheres to the flesh." (6)

"An empty page this exposes the "truth of war" more devastatingly than all the words that have gone before." (13)

"In The Sense Considered as Perceptual System (1968), James Gibson put forward the idea of a "haptic" system: It is the perceptual system by which animals and men are literally in touch with the environment." (20-21)

"What is the relation between touch and literary form?" (29)

"...trauma is acknowledged through the gap in telling..." (68)