 Title page forUndertones of War (1928) | |
| Author | Edmund Blunden |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Memoir |
| Publisher | R. Cobden-Sanderson |
Publication date | 1928 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
Undertones of War is a 1928memoir of theFirst World War, written by English poetEdmund Blunden. As with two other famous war memoirs—Siegfried Sassoon'sSherston trilogy, andRobert Graves'Good-Bye to All That—Undertones represents Blunden's first prose publication,[1] and was one of the earliest contributors to the flurry of Great War books to come out ofEngland in the late 1920s and early 1930s.[2]
Paul Fussell has calledUndertones of War an "extended elegy in prose,"[3] and critics have commented on its lack of central narrative. LikeHenri Barbusse'sUnder Fire andErich Maria Remarque'sAll Quiet on the Western Front, the text presents a series of war-related episodes rather than a distinct, teleological narrative.
According to Paul Fussell, in Blunden's “writing about horror and violence, understatement delivers the point more effectively than either idealism or heavy emphasis.”[4]G.S. Fraser, meanwhile, has called the text "the best warpoem," despite its prose form, and went so far as to print sections as poetry in theLondon Magazine.[5]
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