Everything to Nothing

 

The English translation of a book by Prof. Dr Geert Buelens (Comparative Literature) is set to appear in December 2015 as Everything to Nothing: The Poetry of the Great War, Revolution and the Transformation of Europe. The book was originally published in Dutch as Europa Europa! Over de dichters van de Grote Oorlog (2008), and translated into German as well. It won the ABN AMRO Prize for the Best Non-Fiction Book of 2008.

poetry as propaganda

Buelens' book deals with European poetry from the era of the First World War. The conflict opened up a vista of possibilities and tragedies for poetic exploration, and at the same time poetry was a tool for manipulating the sentiments of the combatant peoples. We think of war poets as pacifistic protestors, but that view has been created retrospectively. In Germany alone during the first few months there were over a million poems of propaganda published. 

vital poets

In this cultural history of the First World War, the conflict is seen from the point of view of poets and writers from all over Europe, including Rupert Brooke, Anna Akhmatova, Guillaume Apollinaire, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Rainer Maria Rilke and Siegfried Sassoon. It reveals how poets played a vital role in defining the stakes, ambitions and disappointments of postwar Europe.

Prof. dr. Geert Buelens
Prof. dr. Geert Buelens

About the author

Geert Buelens is professor of Modern Dutch Literature at Utrecht University, guest professor of Dutch Literature at Stellenbosch University (RSA) and Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress. His current research is on the cultural history of the 1960s, the writing of national and international literary histories, neutrality and the First World War and the interplay between poetry and song writing since the Romantic Era.

 

 

  • Title: Everything to Nothing: The Poetry of the Great War, Revolution and the Transformation of Europe (2015)
  • Author: Geert Buelens
  • Publisher: Verso Books
  • ISBN: 9781784781507