ABSTRACT
Literature arising from the war is associated with the maturity of modernity, a sense that the world must always be known through a particular perspective that has limited access to truth. Literary critics have tended to study American World War I literature jointly with British writing, in part because the British output was so much greater. During the war, however, as Mark W. Van Wienen and Hutchison have shown, many American writers played out responses to the war in public writings, including poems, stories, and songs. While Cather and Daly portray the battle front as part of their longer narratives about Americans becoming soldiers, the Great War produced a body of literature that focused almost exclusively on the frontline experience. Edith Wharton's short stories "Coming Home" and "Writing a War Story" and her novel A Son at the Front have also been of interest to literary scholars for their portrayal of civilian life during the war.
