Trauma, Primitivism and the First World War

The Making of Frank Prewett

Joy Porter

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781350199972
• eBook ISBN: 9781350199736
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This book examines the extraordinary life of Frank "Toronto" Prewett and the history of trauma, literary expression, and the power of self-representation after WWI. Joy Porter sheds new light on how the First World War affected the Canadian poet, and how war-induced trauma or "shell-shock" caused him to pretend to be an indigenous North American. Porter investigates his influence of, and acceptance by, some of the most significant literary figures of the time, including Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves. In doing so, Porter skillfully connects a number of historiographies that usually exist in isolation from one another and rarely meet. By bringing together a history of the WWI era, early twentieth century history, Native American history, the history of literature, and the history of class Porter expertly crafts a valuable contribution to the field.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations of archives and collected works
• Introduction: A poet of modern trauma
• Chapter 1: Being Frank Prewett
• Chapter 2: The experience of combat in the First World War
• Chapter 3: ‘Shell-shock’
• Chapter 4: Primitivism, ‘Toronto’ Prewett and Dr William Halse Rivers Rivers (1864–1922)
• Chapter 5: Adopting the ‘Toronto’ personality at Lennel and meeting Siegfried Sassoon
• Chapter 6: Prewett’s friendship with Robert Graves and trauma poetry
• Chapter 7: An ‘Iroquois’ at Oxford and Garsington
• Chapter 8: Repatriated to a suburbanizing Canada: November 1919–January 1921
• Chapter 9: ‘Mad in the peace’: Farming and trauma poetry
• Chapter 10: Prewett responds to changes in the land
• Conclusion: Protest memory and soft primitivism
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index