Love in the Years of War: the Representation of Love and War in Katherine Anne Porter's "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" and Djuna Barnes's Nightwood.

Katherine Anne Porter's "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" (1939) and Djuna Barnes's Nightwood (1936) explore doomed love within the context or against a background of war. Both texts are vibrant critiques of war and therefore militant in their pacifism. Whether explicit or implicit, these modernist writers' refusal to endorse war counters traditional war narratives; harboring an unfulfilled love, the narratives assert a female viewpoint pitted against a male one, whether rejecting traditional gender roles or blurring gender boundaries. This paper examines the interconnection of love and war within the complex dynamics of history, memory and trauma woven within the narratives as Porter and Barnes engage in gender politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]