This article aims to inform and sharpen debate about the status of poetry and art in providing evidence about the First World War and in influencing attitudes to the War, then and subsequently. It is constructed around five cruxes, all of which relate to each other as well as to the overall topic. I start by considering visual evidence. This is important both because of its content and because war artists were ‘approved’ by the authorities at the time, in the expectation that war art would shape public perspectives on the War, as well as providing some kind of record from the field. Literary sources were not accorded the same public status (crux 1). I outline a basis for comparison and understanding of the overlaps between the images and aesthetic of visual and literary material, both of which offer a record of the lived experience of participants as well as underlying affective judgements made about the War (crux 2). I then describe arguments from revisionist historians who exclude literary sources from their construction of narratives of the War. I argue for the recognition of a plurality of narratives including those that are informed by visual and literary sources. No narrative can be totalizing and each needs refining. This approach can best be illustrated by tightening the lens on one key aspect and I have selected refractions of peace. Once the value of literary sources is recognized, the way is open to challenge simplistic polarization between notions of war and peace and to refine distinctions between different conceptions of peace that were important in antiquity and were both embedded and challenged in the poetry of WWI (crux 3). Reception of classical texts and ideas and the ways that they can be read in relation both to antiquity and to World War I poetry has a crucial role to play in nuancing these relationships between notions of war and peace (crux 4). I test that hypothesis against close readings of the dialogue between classical texts and WWI poetry in their explorations of what peace entails (crux 5). Finally, in the Coda I return to the bigger picture and suggest how the case studies and the constellations of heightened classical receptivity that they reveal can also contribute to future analysis of the formation of public imagination and the overlapping layers of cultural memory. [the First World War] continues to cast its long, cold shadow from the past to the present. […] Ten million [of the sixty-five million soldiers] died and nearly twenty million were wounded; seven million civilian lives were lost: gross statistics which can only, perhaps, be comprehended, in simply human terms, through the poetry of the time. Carol Ann Duffy (2013) Here was the world’s worst wound. And here with pride ‘Their name liveth for ever’, the Gateway claims. […] Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime Rise and deride this Siegfried Sassoon, ‘On Passing the New Menin Gate’ (1927–28)1

中文翻译：

---

文化记忆的诗学：一战对古代和平的折射

本文旨在提供有关诗歌和艺术在提供有关第一次世界大战的证据以及影响对战争的态度以及随后的态度方面的信息和尖锐的辩论。它围绕五个关键点构建，所有这些关键点都相互关联，也与整个主题相关。我首先考虑视觉证据。这一点很重要，因为它的内容以及当时的当局“批准”了战争艺术家，期望战争艺术能够塑造公众对战争的看法，并提供某种来自该领域的记录。文学来源没有被赋予相同的公共地位（关键 1）。我概述了比较和理解视觉和文学材料的图像和审美之间的重叠的基础，两者都记录了参与者的生活经历以及对战争做出的潜在情感判断（关键点 2）。然后我描述了修正主义历史学家的论点，他们将文学来源排除在战争叙事的构建之外。我主张承认多种叙事，包括那些由视觉和文学资源提供信息的叙事。任何叙述都不能一概而论，每个叙述都需要细化。这种方法可以通过在一个关键方面收紧镜头来最好地说明，我选择了和平的折射。一旦文学资源的价值得到认可，这条道路是开放的，可以挑战战争与和平概念之间简单化的两极分化，并细化不同和平概念之间的区别，这些概念在古代很重要，并且在第一次世界大战的诗歌中被嵌入和挑战（关键点 3）。接受与古代和第一次世界大战诗歌相关的古典文本和思想以及阅读它们的方式，在处理战争与和平概念之间的这些关系方面起着至关重要的作用（关键 4）。我通过仔细阅读古典文本和第一次世界大战诗歌之间的对话来检验该假设，以探索和平意味着什么（关键 5）。最后，在《尾声》中，我回到了更大的图景，并提出了案例研究和它们揭示的高度古典接受度的星座如何也有助于未来分析公众想象的形成和文化记忆的重叠层。[第一次世界大战]从过去到现在继续投下长长的冷影。[……] [六千五百万士兵中的] 一千万人死亡，近两千万人受伤；700 万平民丧生：粗略的统计数字，也许只能通过当时的诗歌，用简单的人类术语来理解。Carol Ann Duffy (2013) 这是世界上最严重的伤口。在这里自豪地“他们的名字永远存在”，Gateway 声称。[...] 在史莱姆中挣扎的死者可能会崛起并嘲笑这个齐格弗里德·沙逊，