Reimagining the War Memorial, Reinterpreting the Great War

Book excerpt: Reimagining the War Memorial, Reinterpreting the Great War: The Formats of British Commemorative Fiction is an in-depth analysis of the role of British war memorials in literature and film, in the wider context of the commemorative trend in contemporary culture. The Sheffield City Battalion Memorial, the Menin Gate Memorial, the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, the Royal Artillery Memorial, and the Shot at Dawn Memorial are the focus of the discussion, which aims to show how the meanings assigned to specific war memorials create ideologically diverse interpretations of the British experience of the Great War, ranging from the futility myth to the imperial sublime. The epistemological ambivalence of the war memorial lies at the heart of the analysis of the selected novels, films and plays, for the condemnation of a military conflict as a historical evil does not necessarily exclude the possibility of honouring the men who fought in it.