News of War

News of War contributes to a growing body of scholarship that seeks to include civilian writing in the canon of twentieth-century war literature...The persuasiveness of Galvin's book, however, is no mere rhetorical trick: it rests on impressive archival work and thorough knowledge of the critical landscape. Her experience as a poet and linguist informs an impressive ability to crack open familiar poems, reading them afresh with compellingly revisionist results. * Rosie Langridge, University of Plymouth, Modern Language Review *
News of War is a remarkably original work and brings together two different forces in current literary criticism. * Leo Mellor, Literature & History *
This book, however, goes beyond poetry or literature. It explains how press and daily news influenced these authors and their poetry, because they could not experience firsthand the events that were happening in the war fronts ... Poetry written back in the decades of 1930 and 1940 brings to the table both context and sociohistorical aspects and opens the door to contemporary poetry which observes more recent wars and events. * Loarre Andreu Perez, Communication Booknotes Quarterly *
The international and multilingual scope of the book will present challenges for readers not already deeply conversant with modernist poetics, but the rewards for following Galvin's excursions are plentiful. ... Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * D. C. Maus, CHOICE *
Just how noncombatant writings may probe war cultures and constitute ethical interventions is the subject of Rachel Galvin's impressive comparative study. Poetry from the 1930s and 1940s on the Spanish Civil War and World War II, from civilian writers as politically diverse as César Vallejo, W.H. Auden, Wallace Stevens, Raymond Queneau, Marianne Moore and Gertrude Stein, provides the springboard for Galvin's brilliant, far-reaching discussion, founded on rich theoretical and sociohistorical frameworks. A 'must-read,' News of War is a veritable tour de force for its exposition, breadth and depth of scholarship, and sheer elegance. * Christine Arkinstall, University of Auckland *
In this compelling book about poets who wrote during the Spanish Civil War and World War II-Auden, Stevens, Moore, Vallejo, Queneau, and Stein-Rachel Galvin explores how these noncombatant writers earned, demonstrated, and anchored their authority for writing about war. With her astute analysis of wartime poetry's self-reflexivity, self-interruptions, and self-understanding, Galvin has written a richly insightful book that ranges across national and linguistic lines, and that illuminates both the historical contexts and the formal nuances of the poems. Everyone interested in poetry's relation to the violent realities of the twentieth century will benefit from this valuable book. * Jahan Ramazani, University of Virginia *