Reconstructing the Body: Classicism, Modernism, and the First World War
Ana Carden-Coyne
Abstract
The First World War mangled faces, blew away limbs, and ruined nerves. Ten million dead, twenty million severe casualties, and eight million people with permanent disabilities, modern war obliterated with unsparing, mechanical efficiency. Pain and suffering were terrifying consequences of modern war, and yet this truth is not the entire story. People also rebuilt their lives, their communities, and their bodies. Rising from the ashes of war was beauty, eroticism, and the promise of utopia. This book investigates the cultures of resilience and the institutions of reconstruction in Britain, Aust ... More
The First World War mangled faces, blew away limbs, and ruined nerves. Ten million dead, twenty million severe casualties, and eight million people with permanent disabilities, modern war obliterated with unsparing, mechanical efficiency. Pain and suffering were terrifying consequences of modern war, and yet this truth is not the entire story. People also rebuilt their lives, their communities, and their bodies. Rising from the ashes of war was beauty, eroticism, and the promise of utopia. This book investigates the cultures of resilience and the institutions of reconstruction in Britain, Australia, and the United States. Immersed in efforts to heal the violence and triumph over adversity, reconstruction motivated politicians, professionals, and individuals to transform themselves and their societies. Bodies were not to remain locked away in tortured memories. Instead, they became the subjects of outspoken debate, the objects of rehabilitation, and commodities of desire in global industries. Governments, physicians, beauty and body therapists, monument designers, and visual artists looked to classicism and modernism as the tools for rebuilding civilization and its citizens. What better riposte for loss of life, limb, and mind than a body reconstructed?
Keywords:
First World War,
the body,
beauty,
pain,
disability,
rehabilitation,
trauma,
memory,
modernity,
sexuality
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2009 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199546466 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2009 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199546466.001.0001 |
