Rose Macaulay, Non-Combatants and Others

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The first British novel to describe shell-shock and its effects on civilians as well as soldiers, Rose Macaulay’s

Non-Combatants and Others

is a classic of war literature deserving of more critical attention than it has received so far in literary histories of the modern period. Written and published

in medias res

, before the war’s outcome could be known, Macaulay’s novel captures the home front

zeitgeist

, from propaganda and rumors of German atrocity to the effects of censorship on artists, to the emergent pacifist movement and the many women involved in it. In her critical study on Macaulay, Alice Crawford notes that the writer’s war fiction “registers a decisive jolt”, and she suggests that the war “released her at last from the bonds of the conventional ‘Edwardian’…

804 words

Citation: Brassard, Genevieve. "Non-Combatants and Others". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 May 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=30296, accessed 19 March 2024.]

30296 Non-Combatants and Others 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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