Vera Brittain and the First World War
Auteur
- Mark Bostridge (Écrivain)
Acheter neuf
Acheter d'occasion
Classement en biblio - 2 lecteurs
extrait
Vera Brittain called Testament of Youth a ‘passionate plea for peace’, which attempts to show ‘without any polite disguise, the agony of war … and its destructiveness to the human race’. The book is arguably the greatest work of love, loss and remembrance to emerge from the First World War. To my mind there is nothing else in the prose literature of the war that so eloquently and movingly conveys the suffering and bereavement inflicted on the generation of 1914.
And while it is regrettable that other fine books by women about the war are not better known, Testament of Youth is the only book by a woman to find a place in the British canon of Great War literature, alongside works by such male writers as Edmund Blunden, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon. Brittain was intent on offering her book as a corrective to masculine accounts, which emphasised women’s passive suffering during the war instead of their active service. To Brittain, the women of the war generation had helped to bridge the gulf between their Victorian forbears, ‘who merely endured’, and ‘the 20th century women, who pull down and change things, adventure and construct’.
Paradoxically, the war that devastated Brittain’s youth also helped to create her as a writer. Vera Brittain spent much of her writing life describing the war and its impact, in a wide variety of literary genres: diaries, letters, poetry, fiction, memoir, journalism, polemic (the only comparable male writer of the war in this respect, constantly rewriting his experiences, is Sassoon). But it is Testament of Youth that stands alone as her lasting contribution to history and to literature.
Afficher en entier
Activité récente
Livres ayant des thèmes similaires
Résumé
Vera Brittain and the First World War tells the remarkable story of the author behind Testament of Youth whilst charting the book's ascent to become one of the most loved memoirs of the First World War period. Such interest is set to expand even more in this centenary year of the war s outbreak.
In the midst of her studies at Oxford when war broke out across Europe, Vera Brittain left university in 1915 to become a V.A.D (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse, treating soldiers in London, Malta and Etaples in France. The events of the First World War were to have an enormous impact on her life. Four of Brittain's closest friends including her fiancé Roland Leighton and her brother Edward Brittain MC were killed in action, sparking a lifelong commitment to pacifism. In 1933 she published Testament of Youth, the first of three books dealing with her experience of war. In equal measures courageous, tragic and deeply fascinating, Testament of Youth is one of the most compelling and important works of war literature ever to have been written by a British woman.
Mark Bostridge's Vera Brittain and the First World War, published to coincide with the film of Testament of Youth, explores the effects of the First World War on Vera Brittain, both in terms of her personal life and in terms of its effect on her development as a writer and her eventual decision to become a pacifist. Taking advantage of the interest generated by the film, it will bring her story to a new generation and incorporate the most up-to-date research. It will also include a short essay 'From Book to Film', describing the process of turning Testament of Youth into a major feature film. This will include interviews with the production staff and actors, as well as with members of Vera Brittain's family, including Shirley Williams.
The film, which has been scripted by Juliette Towhidi and is being produced by BBC Films and Heyday Films, the makers of Harry Potter, is currently in production. Alicia Vikander (Anna Karenina) stars as Brittain, with Kit Harington (Game of Thrones, Pompeii) playing her fiancé Roland Leighton.
Afficher en entier