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AQA A-Level English Literature Paper 2 (Texts in Shared Contexts) requires you to study literary texts within the context of the period in which they were written or which they represent. For the WW1 and Its Aftermath option, this means understanding the historical, social, and cultural forces that shaped the literature of the Great War. Assessment Objective 3 (AO3) — "the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received" — demands that you integrate historical understanding into your literary analysis, not as background decoration but as an essential dimension of meaning.
This lesson provides the contextual foundation for everything that follows.
The Great War did not begin with a single cause but with a convergence of forces that had been building for decades:
| Factor | Detail |
|---|---|
| Alliance systems | Europe was divided into two rival blocs: the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) and the Triple Entente (France, Russia, Britain). A conflict involving one power would drag in the others |
| Imperial rivalry | The European powers competed for colonies, markets, and global influence. This competition bred mutual suspicion and militarism |
| Nationalism | Nationalist movements — particularly in the Balkans — created instability. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo (28 June 1914) by a Serbian nationalist was the immediate trigger |
| Militarism | All major European powers had expanded their armies and navies. War plans (such as Germany's Schlieffen Plan) assumed that war was inevitable and victory depended on speed |
| The failure of diplomacy | The "July Crisis" of 1914 saw a cascade of ultimatums, mobilisations, and declarations of war. By early August, most of Europe was at war |
Literary Significance: The gap between the causes of the war (imperial competition, alliance systems, diplomatic failure) and the experience of the war (mass slaughter, industrial killing, trench warfare) is central to war literature. Poets like Owen and Sassoon are responding to the obscenity of a conflict whose political causes seemed grotesquely disproportionate to its human cost.
| Date | Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 1914 | Britain declares war on Germany | Greeted with enthusiasm by many; mass voluntary enlistment; the "it'll be over by Christmas" delusion |
| Oct–Nov 1914 | First Battle of Ypres | The war of movement ends; both sides dig in; trench warfare begins |
| Apr 1915 | Second Battle of Ypres | First large-scale use of poison gas (chlorine) by Germany |
| Jul–Nov 1916 | Battle of the Somme | 57,470 British casualties on the first day alone (1 July). The Somme became a byword for futile slaughter. The "Pals' Battalions" — men from the same town who enlisted together — were decimated together |
| Jul–Nov 1917 | Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) | Fought in appalling mud; approximately 475,000 Allied casualties for minimal territorial gain. The name "Passchendaele" became synonymous with the horror and futility of trench warfare |
| Apr 1917 | USA enters the war | Shifted the balance of forces, though American troops did not arrive in large numbers until 1918 |
| Nov 1917 | Battle of Cambrai | First large-scale use of tanks; a glimpse of the future of warfare |
| 11 Nov 1918 | Armistice | The war ends at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918. Approximately 17 million dead; 20 million wounded |
AO3 Application: When analysing a war poem, knowing when it was written in relation to these events is crucial. A poem written in August 1914 exists in a completely different emotional and moral universe from one written after the Somme. The shift from patriotic enthusiasm to bitter disillusionment is one of the central narratives of WW1 literature.
The Western Front — stretching approximately 440 miles from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border — was the defining landscape of the war and the dominant setting of its literature.
| Condition | Detail |
|---|---|
| Physical environment | Trenches were narrow, muddy, rat-infested, and frequently waterlogged. In winter, soldiers suffered from frostbite; in summer, from heat and flies attracted to unburied corpses |
| "Trench foot" | Prolonged immersion in cold water caused feet to swell, blister, and rot. In severe cases, amputation was necessary |
| Lice | Body lice were universal and carried trench fever |
| Rats | Trench rats, fattened on human remains, could grow to the size of cats |
| Smell | The stench of death, cordite, latrine pits, and unwashed bodies was overwhelming |
| Noise | Artillery bombardment could be constant for days, causing "shell shock" (now recognised as PTSD) |
| No Man's Land | The strip of devastated ground between opposing trenches, typically 100–300 yards wide, swept by machine-gun fire and littered with barbed wire and corpses |
Literary Significance: The physical reality of the trenches is central to war poetry. Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" describes a gas attack with visceral, unflinching detail; Sassoon's "Counter-Attack" evokes the sensory assault of the trenches. The literature insists on the body — broken, suffering, decaying — as a counter to the abstract language of patriotism and glory.
The war transformed British society in ways that are essential context for the literature:
| Aspect | Detail |
|---|---|
| The officer class | Officers were overwhelmingly drawn from the public schools and universities. Their education in classical literature gave them the language — and the ironic awareness — to write about the war. The war poets are predominantly middle- and upper-class voices |
| The working class | Ordinary soldiers ("Other Ranks") had far less access to publication and literary culture. Their experiences are largely mediated through the writing of officers, though some (like Isaac Rosenberg) came from working-class backgrounds |
| The "Pals' Battalions" | Lord Kitchener's recruitment drive encouraged men from the same workplace, neighbourhood, or social group to enlist together. When these battalions were destroyed — as at the Somme — entire communities lost a generation |
| Class tension | Resentment of "staff officers" who planned battles from miles behind the lines is a recurring theme in war literature (e.g., Sassoon's "The General") |
| Aspect | Detail |
|---|---|
| Propaganda | The government and press presented the war as a noble crusade against German barbarism. The gap between propaganda and reality is a major theme of war literature |
| Censorship | Soldiers' letters were censored; the reality of trench conditions was suppressed. War poets were, in effect, breaking censorship |
| Women's roles | Women took on roles previously reserved for men — in factories, on farms, in transport. This contributed to the suffrage movement (women over 30 gained the vote in 1918) |
| Conscription | Introduced in January 1916; conscientious objectors faced tribunals and, in some cases, imprisonment or forced labour |
| Grief | The scale of loss was unprecedented. Almost every family in Britain was affected. The war created a culture of mourning that shaped the post-war period |
| Aspect | Detail |
|---|---|
| Imperial contribution | Soldiers from across the British Empire — India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Caribbean — fought and died in the war |
| Gallipoli (1915) | The disastrous Dardanelles campaign, in which Australian and New Zealand forces (ANZAC) suffered devastating casualties, became a founding narrative of Australian and New Zealand national identity |
| Post-war consequences | The war weakened the moral authority of empire. Colonial subjects who had fought for the "mother country" increasingly questioned their subordination |
Understanding the language and rhetoric of the period is essential for analysing its literature:
| Term/Phrase | Meaning | Literary Significance |
|---|---|---|
| "The old lie" | Owen's phrase for the Latin tag "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country) | Encapsulates the war poets' rejection of patriotic rhetoric |
| "Blighty" | Slang for Britain; a "Blighty wound" was an injury serious enough to get a soldier sent home | Reveals the desperation of men for whom injury was preferable to continued service |
| "Going over the top" | Climbing out of the trench to advance across No Man's Land | The moment of greatest danger; the phrase entered common usage as a metaphor for reckless action |
| "Shell shock" | The contemporary term for what is now called PTSD — psychological trauma caused by the experience of bombardment and combat | Central to texts like Barker's Regeneration; the treatment of shell shock raised fundamental questions about masculinity, courage, and mental illness |
| "For King and Country" | The patriotic appeal used in recruitment | Increasingly hollow as the war progressed; the gap between the appeal and the reality is a source of savage irony in Sassoon and Owen |
Context is not a separate section to bolt onto your essay. It is an integral part of how you read and interpret war literature. Consider:
Exam Principle: The mark scheme rewards candidates who show "perceptive understanding of the significance of relevant contexts." This does not mean writing paragraphs of historical information; it means showing how historical, social, and cultural contexts shape the meaning of literary texts.
The Great War was a catastrophe that shattered the assumptions of an entire civilisation — its faith in progress, its confidence in empire, its trust in authority, its belief that war could be noble. The literature that emerged from this catastrophe — poetry, prose, drama — is an attempt to find language for an experience that seemed to exceed language. Understanding the historical context in which these texts were produced is not optional; it is essential to reading them with the depth and sensitivity they demand.