
First World War Plays
Night Watches, Mine Eyes Have Seen, Tunnel Trench, Post Mortem, Oh What A Lovely War, The Accrington Pals, Sea and Land and Sky
Mark Rawlinson(Editor)
Methuen Drama (Publisher)
Published on 19. June 2014
Book
Hardback
472 pages
978-1-4725-2384-6 (ISBN)
Description
The First World War (1914-1918) marked a turning point in modern history and culture and its literary legacy is vast: poetry, fiction and memoirs abound. But the drama of the period is rarely recognised, with only a handful of plays commonly associated with the war.
First World War Plays draws together canonical and lesser-known plays from the First World War to the end of the twentieth century, tracing the ways in which dramatists have engaged with and resisted World War I in their works. Spanning almost a century of conflict, this anthology explores the changing cultural attitudes to warfare, including the significance of the war over time, interwar pacifism, and historical revisionism. The collection includes writing by combatants, as well as playwrights addressing historical events and national memory, by both men and women, and by writers from Great Britain and the United States.
Plays from the period, like Night Watches by Allan Monkhouse (1916), Mine Eyes Have Seen by Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1918) and Tunnel Trench by Hubert Griffith (1924), are joined with reflections on the war in Post Mortem by Noel Coward (1930, performed 1944) and Oh What A Lovely War by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop (1963) as well as later works The Accrington Pals by Peter Whelan (1982) and Sea and Land and Sky by Abigail Docherty (2010).
Accompanied by a general introduction by editor, Dr Mark Rawlinson.
First World War Plays draws together canonical and lesser-known plays from the First World War to the end of the twentieth century, tracing the ways in which dramatists have engaged with and resisted World War I in their works. Spanning almost a century of conflict, this anthology explores the changing cultural attitudes to warfare, including the significance of the war over time, interwar pacifism, and historical revisionism. The collection includes writing by combatants, as well as playwrights addressing historical events and national memory, by both men and women, and by writers from Great Britain and the United States.
Plays from the period, like Night Watches by Allan Monkhouse (1916), Mine Eyes Have Seen by Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1918) and Tunnel Trench by Hubert Griffith (1924), are joined with reflections on the war in Post Mortem by Noel Coward (1930, performed 1944) and Oh What A Lovely War by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop (1963) as well as later works The Accrington Pals by Peter Whelan (1982) and Sea and Land and Sky by Abigail Docherty (2010).
Accompanied by a general introduction by editor, Dr Mark Rawlinson.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 209 mm
Width: 132 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
594 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4725-2384-6 (9781472523846)
DOI
CBID182744
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Mark Rawlinson is a Reader in English Literature at the University of Leicester, UK. His research has a particular focus on the literature of war. British Writing of the Second World War (2000) was a study of the literary culture of wartime Britain (1939-1945). He has written a book-length study of Pat Barker's fiction, focusing on her representation of the Great War, and was co-editor, with Adam Piette, of The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth Century British and American War Literature (2012).
Content
Introduction
1. Night Watches, Allan Monkhouse
2. My Eyes Have Seen, Alice Dunbar-Nelson
3. Tunnel Trench, Hubert Griffith
4. Post Mortem, Noel Coward
5. Oh What A Lovely War, Joan Littlewood
6. The Accrington Pals, Peter Whelan
7. Sea and Land and Sky, Abigail Docherty
1. Night Watches, Allan Monkhouse
2. My Eyes Have Seen, Alice Dunbar-Nelson
3. Tunnel Trench, Hubert Griffith
4. Post Mortem, Noel Coward
5. Oh What A Lovely War, Joan Littlewood
6. The Accrington Pals, Peter Whelan
7. Sea and Land and Sky, Abigail Docherty