Rather than being defined by their membership of a particular constituency of ideological or sociopolitical war experience, writers hold and express complex and evolving views on the war. Studying authors’ careers reveals not only that their writing was influenced by the war, but that, simultaneously, the circumstances of their artistic and professional development shaped the manner and mode of their literary reactions. More than has been fully appreciated, American writers drew on native literary and historical culture to assess the Great War. Ultimately, however, American writing about the war was idiosyncratic, complex, and subject to change, as writers’ ongoing reactions to the war were influenced by the intricate group of intrapersonal and interpersonal variables that shaped professional authorship.
