The German War in German Poetry: Julius Bab's Anthology of German First World War Poetry

This dissertation examines Julius Bab’s twelve-volume anthology of German First World War poetry, 1914 Der deutsche Krieg im deutschen Gedicht (1914-1919). It argues that although Bab’s anthology and his contemporary reviews of war poetry laid the foundation for later research on German war literature, both Bab and his anthology have been mischaracterised in much recent scholarship as war-apologetic and merely providing a platform for pro-war propaganda. Such judgements fail to account for why Bab’s anthology, rather than any of the many others that were produced in Germany during the First World War, has persisted to this day as the key source for German poetry of the conflict. This dissertation describes the key features of Bab’s work that set it apart from the anthologies of his contemporaries, and which have given it such longevity. Proceeding via analysis of each of the volumes in order of publication, together with a closer reading of selected poems within each volume, it locates the anthology in the historical context in which it was compiled and first read, a time of unprecedented international conflict. Reading the anthology alongside Bab’s own commentaries on the poetry of the war, first published in the journal Das literarische Echo and later compiled into Die deutsche Kriegslyrik, 1914-1918: eine kritische Bibliographie (1920), this study reveals a rich and highly nuanced assemblage of poetry, which although highly regarded at the time, tends to be acknowledged only fleetingly and pejoratively in recent scholarship. It shows that Bab’s educated middleclass outlook informed his selections, and that the range of poets and poems he drew from was extraordinarily and deliberately broad: geographically, socially and politically. This study also shows why labels such as war propagandist and apologist fit Bab so poorly. The earliest volumes contain poetry that is at least equivocal if not anti-war. By the later volumes, much of the writing is overtly pacifist. If Bab is a propagandist in any sense, then he is a propagandist of German culture, because throughout his anthology he tirelessly asserts the continuity of the German literary tradition, and the place of the new war poetry within it. The significance of this study, the first full-length analysis of Bab’s anthology, lies in its reappraisal of a work which can enhance our understanding of the extraordinarily wide range of war poetry written and read in German during the conflict. It also reveals Bab’s own highly nuanced curatorial sense as an anthologist, who, over the full course of the war, was able to weave a compelling narrative from a polyphony of voices, and who in so doing created an important literary document of the conflict.