Why literature written out of the First World War is some of the last century’s finest writing
But, strangely, some of my favourite novels, memoirs and poems were inspired by a conflict that claimed the youth of a generation and gave birth to a bitterly disillusioned modern world. The 1960s musical that made satirical mincemeat of the First World War’s ideals was called Oh, What a Lovely War!I would say, instead, “Oh, What a Literary War!” To me, it’s clear that the literature written out of the Great War outshines that prompted by other wars.
.. The Great War was a literary war in another sense, in that it was fought, at least on the English side, by many men with a classical, intensely literary education.