Voices of the First World War
Explore the firsthand literature of the First World War as we take an in-depth look into the lives and work of two of the best known World War I writers, poet Wilfred Owen and novelist William March.
The “Voices of the First World War” series includes two programs with Professor Frank Fucile of the UW–Eau Claire English Department: “The Poetry of Wilfred Owen” and “Company K by William March.” You are welcome to attend one or both programs. This program is funded in part by the Elizabeth Morris grant, and presented in partnership with UW–Eau Claire.
The Poetry of
Wilfred Owen
Monday, November 11 | 6 p.m. | Eau Claire Room
Registration recommended
Perhaps the best-known of the British soldier-poets, Wilfred Owen was working as an English tutor in France when the First World War broke out. From his first poems portraying the war’s horrors with a realism previously unseen in English literature, to his later elegies and odes to his comrades in arms, Owen’s poetry reconfigured the English Romantic tradition and set the stage for Modernism. The program will include discussions of chemical warfare, post-traumatic stress disorder, various forms of war resistance, and Owen’s centennial remembrance.
Company K
by William March
Tuesday, December 17 | 6 p.m. | Eau Claire Room
Registration required
William March Campbell was a Marine who fought in the American Expeditionary Forces and earned a Bronze Star for his actions in combat. After the war he was a businessman moonlighting as a writer of psychological fiction. Company K, with 113 different narrators recounting a wide variety of experiences before, during, and after combat, is perhaps the definitive American novel of the First World War. Its scope and weirdness still have the whiff of truth a century after the end of the war. The program will include discussions of American combat at Belleau Wood, Blanc Mont, and in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, as well as the various commemorative practices and political effects that resulted from the War.
