The Humanities of Contagion: How Literary and Visual Representations of the “Spanish” Flu Pandemic Complement, Complicate and Calibrate COVID-19 Narratives

Abstract

Abstract My article examines how literary and visual representations of the “Spanish” Flu contagion foreshadow and generate critical discourses about pandemics. D.H. Lawrence’s novella The Fox characterises paranoia about biological abnormality and loss of agency as a likely reaction to epidemic threats, Josep Pla’s literary non-fiction The Gray Notebook explores how the act of forgetting functions as a coping mechanism during the experience of contagion, and John Singer Sargent’s painting The Interior of a Hospital Tent problematises the contradiction between forgetfulness and pandemic preparedness. Because these works utilise subtle but effective metaphors to understand, remember, and ethicise the trauma of living through a global contagion, they reveal the unexpected ways that metaphors rethink or generate critical resources about pandemics such as COVID-19. My article thus argues that the ability of these works to complement, complicate, and ultimately calibrate hegemonic narratives about COVID-19 makes a persuasive case for the educational relevance of humanistic insights.