Exprimer l'inexprimable: Les ecrivains combattants de la Grande Guerre.
Item
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Title
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Exprimer l'inexprimable: Les ecrivains combattants de la Grande Guerre.
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Identifier
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AAI9315477
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identifier
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9315477
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Creator
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Keith, Claire.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Francoise Dorenlot
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Date
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1993
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Language
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French
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Modern | History, Modern
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Abstract
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Due to the magnitude and the unprecedented nature of its fighting, the Great War has generated a large body of testimonial literature from its participants, notably in the forms of memoirs, diaries and correspondences, as well as some works of fiction. France, having fought for and on its own soil, encouraged and facilitated the publication of such testimonies, thereby creating a large and homogenous corpus which lends itself particularly well to literary analysis. This thesis explores the literary dilemma which arose from the discrepancy between the reality of technological slaughter and the literary means available to describe it. It studies some of the means by which the testimonies attempt to communicate the experience of modern, anonymous violence: derision or parody of traditional moral rhetoric, neutral description in real time, increased reliance on the unsaid, invasion of sound, smell and static image over plot, use of silence, or of the machine, as themes. And, in light of the growing testimonial power of photography in later tragedies, this thesis looks in the texts for the emergence of a new and fragmented writing and for the appearance of the clinical, detached observation which our society has come to regard as the most effective way to convey absolute horror.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
