Children's Literature and Performing Arts in Early 20th-Century Britain from the Perspective of National Ideology during World War I

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K00407
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02030:English literature and literature in the English language-related
• Research Institution: Konan University
• Principal Investigator: IWAI Gaku 甲南大学, 文学部, 教授 (70369859)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 第一次大戦時の芸術 / D. H. Lawrence / Algernon Blackwood / The Starlight Express / A Prisoner in Fairyland / class representation

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study focuses on such works as The Starlight Express (1915), a music drama written by Violet Pern and composed by Edward Elgar, and its original novel, Algernon Blackwood's The Prisoner of Fairyland (1913), and on D. H. Lawrence's play Touch and Go, written around the Armistice. I analyse them mainly from the perspective of ideologies of the early 20th century, nationalism during the First World War, and class representations. This analysis reveals that the text like The Starlight Express, a work of entertainment seemingly unrelated to the real world, and those by writers like Lawrence, who is considered subversive and revolutionary, are also inscribed with the dominant ideologies in Britain at the time of World War I.

Free Research Field

20世紀イギリスの文学と文化

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

第一次大戦期のファンタジーや娯楽作品など、戦争とは一見関係のないこれらのテクストに刻まれたイデオロギーの痕跡を分析し、芸術作品とイデオロギーとの単純化できない複雑な相貌を明らかにすることで、現代の我々が社会の諸相を読み取るときの一助とすることができる。無垢を装った作品に反動的なイデオロギーはどのように入り込むのか、一見楽観的な作品の中に、戦時の状況や厭戦気分はどのように入り込んでいるのか、歴史的な背景や文化的な諸相を踏まえ過去の作品を分析することは、現代社会に対する我々のリテラシーを高めることに繋がるのである。