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- Title
Louis MacNeices Autumn Journal als Zeitzeugnis des Krisenherbstes 1938.
- Authors
Krahé, Peter
- Abstract
In the run-up to World War II, the Munich Crisis of 1938 highlights both the threat of war and the hope for a lasting peace. In his Autumn Journal, Louis MacNeice, one of the outstanding English poets since the 1930s, reflects on personal memories and political developments against the wider background of the troubled interwar years. The poem captures a pivotal moment in 20th century history and its specific atmosphere, and it is noteworthy that MacNeice refused to amend it in the light of later events. The present analysis of Autumn Journal maintains that it is a poetical work with a personal approach to history, not a scholarly examination. First, it extracts from the poem a panoramic view of Britain's social reality in the 1930s. The focus is then narrowed to passages of social criticism, presenting the disadvantaged in a period of growing affluence and technical progress: the unemployed, the homeless, and the neglected veterans of the Great War. The spirit of the times is elucidated in characteristic features and events: the speaker's view of London, the retrospective of 1914 foreshadowing a new conflict, and home news like the famous Oxford bye-election. As Autumn Journal represents a contemporary testimony, a closer look is required at its non-literary sources, such as the mass media and their impact on everyday life. Finally, MacNeice's projections and premonitions of historical events beyond 1938 are analysed in relation to the subsequent course of history.
- Subjects
AUTUMN Journal (Poem : MacNeice); MACNEICE, Louis, 1907-1963; POLITICAL development; SOCIAL reality; MASS media &; society; SOCIAL conditions in Great Britain
- Publication
Anglia: Journal of English Philology / Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie, 2016, Vol 134, Issue 3, p391
- ISSN
0340-5222
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/ang-2016-0047