Nostalgia and Modernism: Sassoon’s Path[ology] back to the Present
This paper opens up English poet Siegfried Sassoon’s nostalgia by considering it in pathological terms, that is, by seeing it in relation to both Johannes Hofer’s aetiological coinage (nostos, return to one’s native land; algos, pain or distress) and the war neurosis which developed from his experie...
Wedi'i Gadw mewn:
| Cyhoeddwyd yn: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc, |
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| Prif Awdur: | |
| Fformat: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Iaith: | Anglais |
| Cyhoeddwyd: |
Études britanniques contemporaines
2025
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| Mynediad Ar-lein: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Crynodeb: | This paper opens up English poet Siegfried Sassoon’s nostalgia by considering it in pathological terms, that is, by seeing it in relation to both Johannes Hofer’s aetiological coinage (nostos, return to one’s native land; algos, pain or distress) and the war neurosis which developed from his experiences on the Western Front. Focusing on his portrayal of childhood and quasi-epiphanic moments in his autobiographical volumes, The Old Century (1938) and The Weald of Youth (1942), and several poems of this period, I situate his nostalgia in the context of Stephen Spender’s discussion of the nostalgic qualities of both Victorian aesthetics and high modernism, arguing that Sassoon’s accentuated moments of childhood embed his writing in the modernist tradition he strove to escape. |
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