Brief Overview Of The Genre : War Poetry.

Preface : Here in this blog I am going to share my previews and postviews on reading War Poetry. This blog is also intended to be written as a response to the Thinking Activity assigned by my professor Vaidehi Hariyani madam.

I will be discussing the two related questions to the topic.

War Poetry : Is there really anything like 'War Poetry'? If it is so, then we should be stark-clear in understanding the volatile function of the 'Poetry' genre. Poetry, for instance, has become synonymous to Romanticism, there is hardly chance for the poetry to be thought of and looked at as a medium to express the horrors done to human beings, effusion of the imprints of war and its horrendous consequences, and certain negative-deemed aspects of it.

The Genre 'War Poetry' at a Glance : Andrew Motion considers 'War Poetry' as "a sacred national text." Basically, in simplest term we can define 'War Poetry' as the poetry written during the time of World War I & II by the poets who were called for to engage in war going on. So, the poets who had been soldiers at a time wrote poetry in sitting bunkers and trenches made to rest; these poems chiefly reflected the subjective expressions of the poets, it is also imbued with tinge of horrors of war and the disastrous outcome of it which paled the ancient colour of human morality, values, and above all, the faith in God leading to Existentialism & Absurdism which questioned the existence of God or The Creator along with the purpose of one's life, one's own existence.

Poets like Wilfrid Gibson, Siegried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, and Ivor Gurney sought to write poems as an outburst of the massacre they encountered during they tenure as soldiers.

In further course of the blog, let us discuss few questions assigned to be answered as a part of this Thinking Activity.

1.) Note down the difference of all the War Poets.

-» As far as my understanding of the chosen topic goes, I would render the difference amongst the aforementioned war poets by putting forth their uniqueness in style and insight they embedded within the frame of words, metres, and stanzas as follow :

(1) Wilfred Owen :

The Romantic poets Keats and Shelley influenced much of his early writing and poetry. His great friend, the poet Siegfried Sassoon, later had a profound effect on his poetic voice, and Owen's most famous poems ("Dulce et Decorum est" and "Anthem for Doomed Youth") show direct results of Sassoon's influence. Manuscript copies of the poems survive, annotated in Sassoon's handwriting. Owen's poetry would eventually be more widely acclaimed than that of his mentor. While his use of pararhyme with heavy reliance on assonance was innovative, he was not the only poet at the time to use these particular techniques. He was, however, one of the first to experiment with it extensively.

(Source : Wikipedia)

(2) Rupert Brooke :

Rupert Brooke wrote his poems in neo-Romantic style, inspired by the style of Georgian poets. His famous poems are “The Peace”, “The Dead”, “The Soldier”, “And Love has Changed to Kindliness”, “Blue Evening”, “Retrospect”, “A Channel Passage”, and “Beauty and Beauty”.

(Source : Rupert Brooke)

(3) Wilfrid Wilson Gibson :

Gibson’s poetry was characterized by an acute examination of the commonplace. His poems often focus on the lives of the working class. This, again, was based on the idea of making poetry more honest and accessible to everyone’s experience. His fascination with the industrial workers, the circus people, the farmers, and the policemen increased as he developed his craft in the 1920s and 1930s. Critics did not always respond well to Gibson’s literary shifts. Pearl Strachan, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, declared: “Deliberately choosing the commonplace for subject, and in that following some of the best of examples, he has, alas, failed to raise expression beyond the commonplace.” In contrast, a contributor to the Times Literary Supplement remarked: “He is in close touch with the simple, elementary feelings of humanity; and by associating these with pathetic, peculiar, or heroic incidents in the lives of working folk he achieves truth and poignancy by what seems only to be faithful description.” Conrad Aiken, who contributed reviews to Dial, also offered praise, remarking that “Mr. Gibson has clearly proved that poetry can deal with the commonplaces of daily life,—with the bitter and trivial and powerful and universal commonplaces of human consciousness,—and do it with force and beauty.”

(Source : Wilfrid Wilson Gibson)

(4) Siegfried Sassoon :

Although Sassoon’s later poetry is accomplished and sometimes very powerful, it’s for the sting of his war poems that he is best remembered. Unlike Owen’s more heightened lyrical style, Sassoon is adept at catching the rhythms and slang of the ordinary soldiers he served with, whilst the deep empathy underlying the words raises the poems above plain satire. However, his Archive-featured poem, ‘The Dug-Out’, takes a more oblique approach, describing a premonition Sassoon had the night before his best friend was killed. Writing two years later, Sassoon recalls with vivid tenderness his foreboding as he watches his sleeping companion. Short, as many of his poems are, these eight lines capture the moment in a brief flare like “the candle’s guttering gold”.

(Source : Siegfried Sassoon)

(5) Ivor Gurney :

Gurney wrote prolifically during the asylum years, producing some eight collections of verse. His output included two plays in Shakespearean style – "Gloucester Play (1926) and "The Tewkesbury Trial" (1926). During this time he appeared to believe himself to be Shakespeare in person. He continued also to compose music but to a far lesser degree. An examination of his archive suggests that up to two-thirds of his musical output remains unpublished and unrecorded.

By the 1930s Gurney wrote little of anything, although he was described by Scott as being "so sane in his insanity".

(Source : Wikipedia)

2.) Compare any two poems with reference to the subject, style of writing and patriotism.

-» I have prepared a table which denotes the comparative differences between the two poems  - (1) 'The Fear' written by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson (2) 'The Target' written by Ivor Gurney - taken for comparison on the basis of Subject, Style of Writing, and Patriotism :

Winding Up : At the concluding point of the topic, we can safely conclude that War Poetry successfully marked its place in the world of various vivid literary genres. The blog may positively help all those who are connected to academics as well as poetical interest field and add to their understanding.

Thank You!