ABSTRACT
The apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic texts that have appeared with increasing frequency since the late eighteenth century offer their readers the sublime experience of contemplating the end of time on a human scale. The twentieth century saw other kinds of the sublime, more secular contemplations of human destruction. But often with the biblical heritage lurking in the interstices of texts, "the terror of a divine revelation" often transmuting into other revelations that reflected contemporary fears. It is generally accepted that the Second World War and the Cold War resulted in a spate of apocalyptic fictions. Although they envision the end of the world quite fantastically, these apocalyptic narratives nevertheless engage in a displaced manner with disturbing images of actual warfare and traumatic events. As James Berger has noted: apocalypse and trauma are congruent ideas, for both refer to shatterings of existing structures of identity and language. Post-apocalyptic representations are simultaneously symptoms of historical traumas and attempts to work through them.
