University Event

Goldclass: All this stench: Corpses in the Literature of the Great War

University event offered by Goldsmiths, University of London

Event Summary:

A masterclass for Year 12 students interested in studying English Literature at degree level, this session will be led by Dr Frank Krause.

Full Event Details:

Many soldiers of the Great War were regularly exposed to the smell of dead bodies; in literature, the combatants’ disturbing experience of close proximity to corpses is often presented as a threat to the self’s boundaries, or as a deprivation of indispensable burial rites.

The lecture will focus on the lesser known literary method of charging the stench of decomposition with symbolic meaning supposed to reveal the cultural significance of death in war.