Wars and Rumours of Wars

Abstract

Throughout the period from World War One to the present, war or the threat of war has never been far away. Already in 1915, Sigmund Freud was warning that the Great War ‘threatens to leave a legacy of embitterment that will make any renewal of those bonds impossible for a long time to come’;1 and women writers were quick to be among those assessing the legacy which Freud foresaw. As early as 1922, in her novel The Clash, Storm Jameson writes: The Peace conference sat in Paris. Liberty, with a bloody pate, stalked famished on the ice-bound Neva. Grand Dukes and generals ran about two hemispheres crying Murder, Revenge, and moved by the thought of so much suffering, the victors of the war blockaded Russia, so that Murder had to tighten his belt across his hollow stomach… Lord Weaverbridge groaned in travail and the new world was born, by the fecund will of one terrible old Frenchman and passionate lover of his country. He had faith only in the negation of faith and saw that an eyeless malice broods over the destiny of man. Lusts meaner than his, and greeds poorer, served him. Youth, that was to have swept the world, rotted unseen to manure it, or living, became absorbed in a search for excitement or bread. The old men did as they pleased.2 KeywordsGender StudyBritish WomanWoman WriterPassionate LoverPeace ConferenceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.