Catholic Poets of the Great War

Abstract

The First World War poetry canon has long been defined by the works of Anglo-Protestant, agnostic, officer class soldier poets. Though the hegemony of this canon has painted the war as a faith-destroying event, poetic representations of the war involving and often celebrating religious faith were plentiful. Catholicism was a major religion in countries on both sides of the conflict: in 1910, 65% of Europeans were Catholic, including more than 40 million French citizens, 35 million Italians, 38 million Austro-Hungarians, and nearly 6 million people in the British Isles (Liu, Jenkins). This dissertation traces representations of Catholicism in British Isles First World War poetry across a variety of contexts, ranging from high modernist works to Catholic poetry written for popular audiences. Likewise, I investigate the influence of Catholicism upon representations of the war by non-Catholics, including uses of Catholic imagery by secular poets as well as influences of Catholic authors upon non-Catholic ones. I argue for the incorporation of Catholic First World War poetry into anthologies and teaching materials based on the widespread significance I establish of both Catholic poetry and wartime imagery derived from Catholicism.