Assignment 5 : War Poetry : 22403 Paper 110A : History of English Literature : From 1900 to 2000
Introduction : The newly introduced genre 'War Poetry' is outstanding in its own kind. The poetries that dealt with themes like pacifism and peace are regarded as a generic form 'War Poetry' and the poets who went to fight war and wrote poems hiding in the drenches are called 'War Poets.' The former incumbent Poet Laureate of United Kingdom Sir Andrew Motion (1999 - 2009) called 'War Poetry' as "Sacred National Text." In the further course of the assignment, the chief five poets and their respective poems will be discussed with the themes and analysis.
1) 'Dulce et Decorum est' by Wilfred Owen :
The Poem :
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
(Notes: Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”)
Analysis :
'Dulce et Decorum Est' is a poem by the English poet Wilfred Owen. Like most of Owen's work, it was written between August 1917 and September 1918, while he was fighting in World War 1. Owen is known for his wrenching descriptions of suffering in war. In "Dulce et Decorum Est," he illustrates the brutal everyday struggle of a company of soldiers, focuses on the story of one soldier's agonizing death, and discusses the trauma that this event left behind. He uses a quotation from the Roman poet Horace to highlight the difference between the glorious image of war (spread by those not actually fighting in it) and war's horrifying reality.
Themes :
(1) The Horror of War & Trauma of Death : Wilfred Owen wrote “Dulce et Decorum Est” while he was fighting as a soldier during World War I. The poem graphically and bitterly describes the horrors of that war in particular, although it also implicitly speaks of the horror of all wars. While it is easy to comment on the “horror of war” in the abstract, the poem’s depiction of these horrors is devastating in its specificity, and also in the way that Owen makes clear that such horror permeates all aspects of war. The banal daily life of a soldier is excruciating, the brutal reality of death is unimaginable agony, and even surviving a war after watching others die invites a future of endless trauma. The way Owen uses language to put readers inside the experiences of a soldier helps them begin to understand the horrific experience of all of these awful aspects of war.
In the first stanza of “Dulce et Decorum Est,” the speaker thrusts the reader into the mundane drudgery and suffering of the wartime experience, as the speaker’s regiment walks from the front lines back to an undescribed place of “distant rest.” This is not a portrait of men driven by purpose or thrilled by battle. Instead, they are miserable: “coughing like hags,” cursing as they “trudge” through “sludge” with bloody feet. They march “asleep,” suggesting that these soldiers are like a kind of living dead. The terror and brutality of war have deadened them.
While the speaker is clear that the life of a soldier is painful and demoralizing, he demonstrates in the second stanza—which moves from describing the communal “we” of a regiment to a specific dying man—that death in war is also terrible: barbarous, agonizing, and meaningless. In the first two lines of the second stanza, the speaker captures the terror and dumb confusion of facing a gas attack (a feature of Word War I combat, which had never been used to such a terrible extent before that war), with the movement from the first cry of “Gas!” to the urgent amplification of that cry (“GAS!”), which is then followed by all the men “fumbling” with “clumsy helmets.”
(2) The Myth that War is Glorious & Its Indictment by the Speaker : In its first three stanzas, “Dulce et Decorum Est” presents a vision of war—and World War I in particular—that is entirely brutal, bitter, and pessimistic. The fourth and final stanza marks a shift. While the first stanza focused on the “we” of the regiment, the second focused on the “he” of the dying soldier, and the third on the “I” of the traumatized speaker, the fourth stanza focuses on the “you” of the reader. In this stanza, the speaker directly addresses the reader, trying to make them understand the brutal reality of war. This is an effort to contradict what the speaker describes as the “old Lie,” the commonly held belief—communicated in the lines of Latin from the poet Horace (“it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”)—that war, and dying in war, is meaningful and full of glory.
It is possible to read this last stanza in a hopeful way by imagining that the poem could effectively communicate to non-soldiers the brutality of war. In this view, Owen wrote the poem with the belief that by highlighting the juxtaposition between a sanitized image of honorable death (as described by Horace) versus the messy, horrifying truth of actual war, perhaps the poem’s audience will change its attitude towards war and cease cheerfully sending young men—mere "children"—to die in agony.
In the final two lines of "Dulce et Decorum Est," Owen implies this pessimistic view in two main ways. First, and simply, the speaker allows Horace to have the final word. The speaker undercuts Horace’s lines by calling them a lie, but that description comes before the Latin text. That Horace’s words are allowed to end the poem implies a sense that Horace’s words and belief in the glory and honor of war will outweigh the vision of horror described by the poem. Further, by referring to this false story about the glory of war as “the old Lie,” and then quoting a Latin line from the Roman poet Horace, the speaker makes clear that the depiction of war as glorious is not just a simple misconception made by those unfamiliar with war. It is, rather, a lie—a purposefully told falsehood. And it is a lie that has been told for thousands of years in order to inspire young men to willingly give their lives to serve the political needs of their countries.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” is not, then, simply trying to reveal the horror of war to the unknowing public (though it certainly is trying to do that). The poem is also condemning the historical institutions and political/social structures that have, for time immemorial, sent young men to their deaths based on pretty tales of glory. The poem demands that the reader face the truth and no longer be complicit with that old Lie, but even as it does so, it seems to bitterly perceive that nothing will change, because nothing ever has.
2) 'The Soldier' by Rupert Brooke :
The Poem :
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
(Note: This poem has had two titles: “The Soldier” and “Nineteen-Fourteen: The Soldier”. The student may give either title during the recitation.)
Analysis :
'The Soldier' is a poem by Rupert Brooke written during the first year of the First World War (1914). It is a deeply patriotic and idealistic poem that expresses a soldier's love for his homeland—in this case England, which is portrayed as a kind of nurturing paradise. Indeed, such is the soldier's bond with England that he feels his country to be both the origin of his existence and the place to which his consciousness will return when he dies. The poem was a hit with the public at the time, capturing the early enthusiasm for the war (before the grim realities of longterm conflict made themselves known). Nowadays, the poem is seen as somewhat naïve, offering little of the actual experience of war. That said, it undoubtedly captures and distills a particular type of patriotism.
Themes :
(1) War, Patriotism & Nationalism : 'The Soldier' explores the bond between a patriotic British soldier and his homeland. Through this soldier’s passionate discussion of his relationship to England, the poem implies that people are formed by their home environment and culture, and that their country is something worth defending with their life. Indeed, the soldier sees himself as owing his own identity and happiness to England—and accordingly is willing to sacrifice his life for the greater good of his nation. This is, then, a deeply patriotic poem, implicitly arguing that nations have their own specific character and values—and that England’s are especially worthy of praise.
Indeed, the speaker feels he owes his identity itself primarily to his country. It was the personified England that “bore” and “shaped” him, nourished him with sun (ironic, given the often gloomy weather!) and air, and cleansed him with “water.” Much of the sonnet’s octave—the eight-line stanza—is devoted to creating a sense of England as a pastoral, idyllic, and even Eden-like place. The poem’s imagery of rivers, flowers, earth, air, and sun, is part of an attempt to transform nationhood from a human concept to something more fundamental and natural (all the while tied to England specifically), as though the land is infused with the character of its people and vice versa.
3) 'The Fear' by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson :
The Poem :
I do not fear to die
'Neath the open sky,
To meet death in the fight
Face to face, upright.
But when at last we creep
Into a hole to sleep,
I tremble, cold with dread,
Lest I wake up dead.
Analysis :
'The Fear' is a short poem and written in plain stanza with rhyme-scheme AABBCCDD. It directly depicts the soldier's state of mind as he does not want to be killed by betrayal but aspires to die "face to face and upright." This shows the spirit of bravery.
Themes :
(1) Valour & Nationalism : The very first line of the poem "I do not fear to die 'Neath the open sky, To meet death in the fight Face to face, upright." is clearly indicating the fearlessness of the warrior who is the speaker in the poem. He embraces death - the death of bravery, but not the death of treachery.
4) 'The Hero' by Siegfried Sassoon :
The Poem :
'Jack fell as he'd have wished,' the mother said,
And folded up the letter that she'd read.
'The Colonel writes so nicely.' Something broke
In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.
She half looked up. 'We mothers are so proud
Of our dead soldiers.' Then her face was bowed.
Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies
That she would nourish all her days, no doubt
For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes
Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,
Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy.
He thought how 'Jack', cold-footed, useless swine,
Had panicked down the trench that night the mine
Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried
To get sent home, and how, at last, he died,
Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
Except that lonely woman with white hair.
Analysis :
In this poem an officer delivers a consolatory letter to a grieving mother concerning the death of her soldier son, Jack. She is proud of her son’s glorious sacrifice— but, on leaving, the officer reflects wryly on Jack’s cowardice and incompetence in the line.
Written in Iambic Pentameter, ‘The Hero’ comprises three stanzas of six lines length largely made up of rhyming couplets, save the first four lines of the second stanza, which have an alternating rhyme scheme. Rhyming couplets, of course, are particularly effective in relaying neat epigrams or moral statements. The simplicity of the rhyme scheme perhaps apes the newspaper poetry of the time, which often went in for sentimental attitudes about the heroism of the British ‘boys’ and their sacrifice. The first stanza could in fact stand alone as a very effective pastiche of such poetry. The second stanza sees a shift of narrative viewpoint, admitting a more complicated reality of appearance and lies. The third stanza contains the revelation of Jack’s true nature and death, subverting the sentimentality of the first.
Themes :
(1) The Aftermath & Trauma of War : 'The Heor' is a poem wherein the horrific and breaking aftermath of war and the trauma brought to the ruined families whose members are died in wars. The emotional breakdown of mothers whose sons have been martyred is striking part of the poem. The boy who used to be naive dies to protect his country and this is what the Colonel Brother takes pride of. He also gives a word of consolation to his mother on the martyrdom of his brother Jack in the war, and the old mother also calls herself fortunate to have borne the son like him.
(2) The Undercurrent Regret of Families : The families of whose men are standing at frontline are not able to take a breath of rest. They remain always steeped in fear that lest their sons die in the war. But in outer face, they pretend to take pride as their sons are protecting the country but withinside quiver to accept the truth of the death of their sons, this is well-depicted in the lines of the poem : "Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried
To get sent home, and how, at last, he died,
Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
Except that lonely woman with white hair."
5) 'The Target' by Ivor Gurney :
The Poem :
I shot him, and it had to be
One of us 'Twas him or me.
'Couldn't be helped' and none can blame
Me, for you would do the same
My mother, she can't sleep for fear
Of what might be a-happening here
To me. Perhaps it might be best
To die, and set her fears at rest
For worst is worst, and worry's done.
Perhaps he was the only son. . .
Yet God keeps still, and does not say
A word of guidance anyway.
Well, if they get me, first I'll find
That boy, and tell him all my mind,
And see who felt the bullet worst,
And ask his pardon, if I durst.
All's a tangle. Here's my job.
A man might rave, or shout, or sob;
And God He takes no sort of heed.
This is a bloody mess indeed.
Analysis :
A very simple AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHJJIIJJ rhyme scheme (rhyming couplets) – we are being spoken to by an ordinary man – the language in some ways reflects this as well. Look at the uses of enjambments and caesuras. Why does the poet use these? What effect do they create? – it is like an ordinary person is speaking to us, like in “Lamentations” – an ordinary soldier would not be tied by line lengths if he was explaining something to us.
The language is very simplistic, even using some colloquial language and slang: “’Twas”, “a-happening”, “durst”. This reflects the ordinary man telling his story. The implication is that war makes men into killers: “I shot him, and it had to be” – he had no other option but to do that, it was kill or be killed. The speaker almost challenges us to argue with him: “none can blame/Me, for you would do the same.”
The speaker displays a sense of sympathy for the man he killed: “Perhaps he was the only son...” with the ellipsis (...) suggesting he is thinking.
There is a sense of being abandoned by God: “Yet God keeps still, and does not say/A word of guidance any way.”
The effect of the war on the men is shown when the speaker says “And see who felt the bullet first” – there is a sense that death in this poem is by no means the worst effect of war – it’s the killing and the waiting which is the worst – and for those at home (“Perhaps it might be best/To die, and set her fears at rest.”)
The confusion and inescapable nature of the war is expressed through “All’s tangle” – the speaker is trapped in something he can’t control and just has to get on with his “job”.
The final line could be interpreted in a variety of ways: “This is a bloody mess indeed.” – a comment on the war with language appropriate for an ordinary man – or literally referring to the “bloody”ness of the war.
Themes :
(1) The Dilemma Between Duty & Humanity : The poetry deals with the theme of soldier speaker who is stuck in the dilemma of duty and humanity. He wants to confront the enemy he shot and wants his pardon to be bagged to the mother of the guy whom the speaker has shot. He thus tells "I shot him, and it had to be
One of us 'Twas him or me. 'Couldn't be helped' and none can blame Me, for you would do the same" and he has deep sense of repentance of his deeds which he reveals by saying "Well, if they get me, first I'll find That boy, and tell him all my mind, And see who felt the bullet worst, And ask his pardon, if I durst."
Conclusion : The poets who marched along the frontlines were the ones who had near experiences of war in the battlefields which resulted into the imminent strikingness of their poetries they wrote besieged by death and life threats, this makes their works the fine treatment of war abeyance and thus are worthy to be famously regarded as "the sacred national text."
■ References :
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