Literature of World War II

Abstract

World War II has entered Western memory as the "good war" in which the Allies defeated German Nazism and genocidal persecution of the Jews, Italian fascism, and Japanese imperialism. Most literature of World War II differs less in form and content from its forebears than the literature of the Great War differs from its. Randall Jarrell's poetic explorations of the war encompass the experiences of people on the home front, prisoners of war, and Jews in concentration camps. Despite the prominence of Adolf Hitler in cultural memory of World War II, he seldom appears in American literature of the war. American writers faced the injustices perpetrated on the home front. Many World War II novelists felt the obligation to tell what they had seen and done, to educate their readers in an immersive, factual experience about war. Despite the accepted moral clarity of the war, World War II poetry includes poems of protest.

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