Recent scholarly work on Wyeth

As we mark the centennial of America’s entry into the First World War, word of John Allan Wyeth’s wartime poetry continues its gradual dissemination among American and British scholars and readers.

At the 28th Annual Conference on American Literature to be held in Boston May 25-28, by the American Literature Association, Tim Kendall of Exeter University—who needs no introduction to the readers of this blog--- will be presenting a paper, “‘We none of us savvy their lingo’: John Allan Wyeth goes to War.”

I was curious to discover the extent to which the subject of American WWI literature might be featured in a major conference on American literature occuring so close to the centennial. I counted 157 sessions, only three of which concern the First World War and, of those three, two are sessions devoted to Hemingway. Only one session actually names the First World War in its title, and it contains just three presenters, two of whom are British. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion--- Centennial notwithstanding--- that the First World War as a seminal event in American literary history is an idea which, overall, elicits little interest among American academics.

Be that as it may, and although the WWI session, with only three presenters, will be one of the smaller sessions at the conference, the quality of this particular session promises to be very high. In addition to Professor Kendall's paper on Wyeth, two distinguished scholars of women’s literature in the First World War will be presenting papers on the wartime writings of two front-line nurses.

Alice Kelly, of the University of Oxford, who has published on Katherine Mansfield and the First World War, discovered a previously unknown war story by Edith Wharton, and has written about death scenes in the narratives of First World War nurses, will be presenting “Nurse, Suffragette, War Writer: Ellen N. La Motte’s Letters and The Backwash of War.”

Margaret R. Higonnet, of the University of Connecticut (Emeritus), whose previous books include Nurses at the front: writing the wounds of the Great War (Northeastern U Press: 2001) and Lines of fire: women writers of World War I (Plume: 1999), will be presenting “Helen Mackay: Accidentals and Small Things.”

If and when abstracts of these papers become available, I will add them here.

In the meantime, one can only hope that interest in American literature of the First World War among American scholars will be spurred by the Centennial and, perhaps, by the growing interest in WWI among the general public, as evidenced by popularity of the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, and of the recent series, “America’s Great War: World War I and the American Experience,” on PBS. If American scholars fail to rise to the occasion, it appears that British scholars are more than happy to take up the slack.

As far as John Allan Wyeth is concerned, all the current work on him seems to be taking place in the UK. Professor Kendall will be presenting another paper on Wyeth in St. Andrews, Scotland, in June, and will be publishing an article on Wyeth early next year in a book by Clutag Press. In addition, the BBC is said to be planning something on Wyeth, the exact nature of which has yet to be disclosed.

If any readers of this blog are aware of other scholarship on Wyeth, in either America or the UK, published or in progress, please send word and I will acknowledge it here.