The main hypothesis of the article is that the two opposing poles of the spectrum of the (British) cultural memory of the Great War – official, monumentalizing memory and the various strands of counter-memory – are represented respectively by the image of the memorial and the motif of the ghosty voice. The article describes the variations of this dichotomy, discussing poetry by Sassoon and Owen, as well as fiction by John Galsworthy, Henry Williamson, Christopher Isherwood, Alan Hollinghurst and Adam Thorpe, among others, concentrating on moments that could be called memorial ekphrasis, as well as on various aspects of the spectral voice contrasted to monumentalizing memory. What the readings show is that the stark contrast between the two kinds of memory and the two motifs associated with them is ultimately rather unstable.