När kriget blir mänskligt: narrativ inlevelse och mikrohistoriska erfarenheter i Peter Englunds Stridens skönhet och sorg : En litteraturdidaktisk studie av Stridens skönhet och sorg

Sammanfattning

This study examines Peter Englund’s The Beauty and the Sorrow as literary non fiction, focusing on how the First World War is represented through narrative form and microhistorical experiences. Through a qualitative reading of The beauty and the sorrow: An intimate tale of the first world war, the study analyses how narrative techniques such as tempo, focalization, rhythm and the structure of the chapters. The study shows that Englund’s narrative form makes individual experiences of fear, nationalism, belonging and suffering becomes important and aspects of the text. At the same time, the microhistorical perspective shifts attention from war as a macrohistorical event to war as lived by humans. The didactic potential of the work lies in this interaction between form and content, as it may open for classroom discussions about human dignity, ideology, responsibility, empathy and the individual’s relation to larger historical structures.