Some considerations of Georges Duhamel's volumes of World War I

Abstract

The period of the first World War marks a new epoch in literature. A set of powerful, nationalistic forces had been suddenly unleashed to upset the mundane themes of western culture still seemingly secure in the warm afterglow of the late nineteenth century. Shortly after the war had begun, the truth of the horrors of combat as related by the aoldiers appeared in print. The contemporaneous aspect of war's realism was among the reasons that the public aeclaimed the war novel. As one authority declared "Dans toutes les nations belligerantes le livre de guerre a ete le grand succes populaire. Il semble bien avoir realise 1'oeuvre exemplaire de la litterature sociale: En France Le Feu de Barbusse, Lea Croix de bois de Dorgeles, et La Vie des martyrs de Duhamel sont des liens spirituels entre la nation et l'armee, tels que jamais une epoque n'en a etablie."