How to remember: War, Armistice and memory in post-1918 British fiction

Abstract

Post-1918 literature has played a major part in determining the way the First World War has been remembered in the British national consciousness. The post-war literary boom in the late 1920s and early 1930s has shaped many impressions of the war, allowing images of the Western Front to dominate memory. This article, however, explores alternative ways that post-war literature has commemorated the war, beginning with the Armistice, to track the significance of memory in Britain in the immediate post-war decades. My concern here is the focus on memory in non-war fiction and some memoir: those stories written in the inter-war decades that do not look backwards, but instead deal with the aftermath, By considering the fiction of writers such as Irene Rathbone, Virginia Woolf, Dorothy L. Sayers and Winifred Holtby as they engage with the complex issues surrounding how to remember, I will examine whether these writers, as women, endorsed the culture of disillusionment or offered alternative modes of remembrance.