Survivorship Bias in World War I Poetry: How the Voices of the Living Shape The Historical Record

Abstract

Survivorship bias, a selection bias resulting from placing analytic attention solely on individuals or works that have survived (leaving aside those who were lost or never recorded), has serious ramifications for cultural histories about wartime. In the field of World War I poetry analysis, survivorship bias is evident when literary scholarship pays significant attention to the testimony of poets who survived the war to write and publish their poetic witness but diminishes the recorded voices of poets who died or whose work was lost. Survivor testimony develops into a more nuanced historical record of the war’s collective memory, relegating it less weight than it might have if poetry makes the survivor’s trauma, suffering, and disillusionment more apparent. This paper uses rigorous textual analysis to revisit and interrogate canonized poems from and about World War I, both in the selected or received text and in the literary scholarship, to the degree that it has helped produce an overwhelming testimony of survivors’ historical view of the war and its consequences. By fostering an intersection of literary criticism and testimonies of survivors, the current study helps highlight how survivor testimony can shape knowledge of the common cultural record, thereby emphasizing specific themes while silencing or diminishing others, and reinforcing form as a contributor to literary history.