About the Project

Overview

Launched on 11th November 2008 the First World War Poetry Digital Archive (based at the University of Oxford and funded by the JISC Digitisation Programme) made available to the general public a wide array of archival resources relating to literature of the First World War. Building on the success of Oxford's 'Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive', and the 'Virtual Seminars for Teaching Literature' project, this multimedia digital archive contains archival resources from other major British poets of the First World War plus images, text, audio and video of primary contextual materials.

Background to the project

There can be no doubt about the widespread popularity of war poetry, and First World War poetry in particular, in literature and history courses across the country. It is taught in most universities, FE colleges and, of course, at school level. It also continues to attract considerable public attention due to the cultural importance of the period for modern day Britain, and the way it shaped attitudes to warfare. The original Wilfred Owen archive has attracted over 1.2 million hits and is referenced by teachers and researchers worldwide. This project will open up access to other major British poets and a wider array of contextual material to build on that interest.

The multimedia online database of primary source material (manuscripts of poems, letters, diaries, etc) plus contextual information (images, audio and film material from the Imperial War Museum) is browsable and searchable, and freely available online. Among the 4,000 digital images (in addition to the 3000 items in the original archive), and 500 multimedia objects to be opened up to the public are drafts of Robert Graves's poems for Over the Brazier and Fairies and Fusiliers, drafts of Edward Thomas's war poems and diary, correspondence between Vera Brittain and Roland Leighton, the poetry drafts and letters of Isaac Rosenberg, plus the complete poetry manuscripts of Wilfred Owen. Widening its remit the archive also aims to include archival resources focusing on the role that women played during the war, and writing from the Home Front.

Supporting Education

Fully aware of the educational significance of this archival collection, the project has also developed instructional tutorials for undergraduates to train them in editorial and research skills using primary source material, and resources to support the teaching of World War One literature and history at school level. Visitors to the archive can create their own annotated trails through the archive for others to use, and have been able to submit their own digital material through the community collection, known as The Great War Archive.

The Great War Archive: A Community Collection

The development of The Great War Archive has enabled the remote contribution of digital objects to the collection, thus releasing material which up to now has been stored by individuals but inaccessible to scholars. The public were invited to submit digital objects to increase the contextual information (e.g. photographs from the period, postcards, letters, and typed memoirs) as well as poetry. This proved a powerful means of building the archive and making use of the Internet’s ability to tap into amateur digitisation and bring together unknown collections. Because of the chronological proximity of the First World War, many people hold personal items to do with the war that they have been happy to share via a straightforward licence. All submissions required basic metadata, copyright clearance, limited in file size, and have been vetted before release.