Maddie

=World War I Poetry=

How was the public depicted in war poetry?
**__Example 1: “Suicide in the Trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon__** The poets idea of the people’s reaction at home about soldiers… "You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by,  Sneak home and pray you’ll never know The hell where youth and laughter go ."
 * Points of interest:**


 * 'smug-faced crowds' = indication they're satisfied but initially also a sense of pride for perhaps their country and soldiers.
 * 'sneak home' = sinister idea (but made more neutral with 'pray')
 * 'The hell where youth and laughter go.' = daunting prospect of war, shows the gap between the public and the soldiers. Lack of understanding between the two.

**__Example 2: “Return of the Heroes” - //A lady watches from the crowd, Enthusiastic, flushed, and proud.// By Siegfried Sassoon__** ‘Oh there’s Sir Henry Dudster ! Such a splendid leader! How pleased he looks! What rows of ribbons on his tunic! Such dignity …. Saluting…. ( Wave your flag now, Freda !)…. Yes, dear, I saw a Prussian General once – at Munich. 'Here’s the next carriage! … Jack was once in Leggit’s Corps That’s him! … I think the stout one is Sir Godfrey Stoomer. They //must// feel sad to know they can’t win any more Great victories! … Aren’t they glorious men? …so full of humour!’


 * Points of interest:**
 * 'Sir Henry Dudster! Such a splendid leader!' = The focus on leaders and individuals like Sir Henry Dudster, a Prussian General and Sir Godfrey Stoomer. References to them include their appearance; 'rows of ribbons on his tunic!' and 'the stout one'.
 * 'Such dignity' = The stress on the word and what follows implies that this lady knows little about 'dignity'.
 * 'Wave your flag now, Freda!' = The lady giving her own orders in her own world (which is very different to that of war). In a bizarre way she is almost being compared to the men walking/marching past.
 * 'They //must// feel sad to know they can't win any more / Great victories! ... Aren't they glorious men? ... so full of humour!' = The final lines of the poem, in context of the war, they seem distasteful for anyone to say that. The poet highlights the importance of appearance in society which defintiely would not have mattered in the trenches. The talk of 'Great victories!' would certainly boost morale but who's? The public's or the soldiers?

What can poetry tell us about life during WWI?
Extract from the poem...
 * __Example 1: “Anthem for A Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen__**

‘these who die as cattle ?’ ‘Only the monstrous anger of the guns .’ ‘Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle ’
 * Points of interest:**
 * The title, "Anthem for A Doomed Youth" already relates pride with 'anthem' defined as 'a hymn of praise or loyalty' [1] which provides contrast with 'for A Doomed Youth'.
 * 'die as cattle' = the idea of mass groups of soldiers like 'herding cattle' but they die just the same. Treatment like animals.
 * 'monstrous anger of the guns' = Personifies the guns, almost gives a human quality of warfare and killing, perhaps a metaphor for anger of soldiers? effectively they are just a piece of equipment to fight with.
 * 'stuttering rifles' rapid rattle' = Really shows a struggle, in particular with the alliteration of 'rapid rattle'.

**__Example 2: “Suicide in the Trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon__** First two stanzas of the poem... I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy , Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum , With crumps and lice and lack of rum , He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again .


 * Points of interest:**
 * 'simple soldier boy' = alliteration. The fact that a soldier should be an image of a man but in this case, it's a boy.
 * 'grinned at life in empty joy' = Very boyish with the connotations of 'grinned'.
 * 'With crumps and lice and lack of rum' = crumps seems to mean an exploding of a shell, so exploding shells, lice and lack of rum indicate a combination for disaster highlighted by 'He put a bullet through his brain.' which is very brutal but also very honest which may have been too much for the public.

**__Example 3: “The Happy Warrior” by Herbert Read__** Extract from the poem... His wild heart beats with painful sobs, His strin’d hands clench an ice-cold rifle, His aching jaws grip a hot parch’d tongue, His wide eyes search unconsciously. He cannot shriek.

**__Points of interest:__**
 * Repetition of 'his' makes it more personalised, although there is no name and it seems generalised in the title, the description shows the pain of one individual that in turn would relate to many others.
 * Adjectives such as 'wild', 'aching' and 'wide' describe nouns such as body parts 'heart', 'hands', 'jaws', 'eyes'. The combination such as 'wild heart', 'wide eyes' evokes empathy.
 * Verbs such as 'beats', 'clench' and 'grip' add to the empathy of the poem and the vivid description allows the reader to visualise the pain of "The Happy Warrior".
 * The final line 'He cannot shriek' is a conclusion that is so powerful the idea of a human not being able to fulfill their needs, in this case for this soldier to shriek is very disturbing and evokes more pain.

How did poet's war experiences affect their poetry?
From the book ‘The War Poems by Siegfried Sassoon’ (pg 29)
 * __ Example 1: Siegfried Sassoon __**
 * **Poem: Died of Wounds** (1916) by Siegfried Sassoon
 * H is wet white face and miserable eyes ||
 * Brought nurses to him more than groans and sighs: ||
 * But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fell ||
 * His troubled voice : he did the business well. ||
 * The ward grew dark; but he was still complainin g ||
 * And calling out for ‘Dickie’. ‘Curse the Wood! ||
 * ‘It’s time to go. O Christ, and what’s the good? ||
 * ‘We’ll never take it, and it’s always raining.’ ||
 * I wondered where he’d been; then heard him shout, ||
 * ‘ They snipe like hell! O Dickie, don’t go out...  ||
 * I fell asleep ... Next morning he was dead; ||
 * And some Slight Wound lay smiling on the bed. ||
 * I fell asleep ... Next morning he was dead; ||
 * And some Slight Wound lay smiling on the bed. ||

‘I got the idea in the hospital at Amiens, where a youngster raved and died in the bed opposite mine. I think he came from High Wood at its worst.’ (Sassoon)
 * Points of interest:**


 * 'His wet white face and miserbale eyes.' is the fist line of the poem which is already quite shocking for the reader due to the alliteration and ideas surrounding the soldiers appearance. (Which is focused on in a lot of his poems)
 * 'They snipe like hell! O Dickie, don't go out...' introduces speech which makes the poem easier to identify with and all the more powerful and thought provoking.

From the book ‘The War Poems by Siegfried Sassoon’ (pg 10) So Davies wrote: "This leaves me in the pink." Then scrawled his name: "Your loving sweetheart, Willie." With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drink Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly, For once his blood ran warm; he had pay to spend. Winter was passing; soon the year would mend.
 * **Poem: In the Pink** (10th of February 1916) by Siegfried Sassoon

But he couldn't sleep that night; stiff in the dark He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm, And how he'd go as cheerful as a lark In his best suit, to wander arm in arm With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear The simple silly things she liked to hear. And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudge Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten. Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge, And everything but wretchedness forgotten. To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die. And still the war goes on - he don't know why.

‘About (no one in particular but) someone who, ‘after months and months of a dog’s life and no leave'. The Westminster refused the poem, as they thought it might prejudice recruiting!!’ (Sassoon)


 * Points of interest:**
 * 'Winter was passing, soon the year would mend' shows the hope related to such a small thing like the passing of winter which then personifies the year, 'year would mend'
 * 'to-morrow night we trudge' seems to indicate a never ending march.
 * 'And everything but wretchedness forgotten.' = use of 'everything but' means there are more stresses and emphasis on line.
 * 'but soon he'll die' is such a simple line but in that way that's what makes it so powerful.
 * 'And still the war goes on - he don't know why.' = Dramatic and great emphasis on last line. The lack of understanding of why the war goes on just that they have to go to the trenches and fight.
 * The poets reasons for the poem indicate that the poem is more general than fixed on a certain individual but it is clear that the poets experiences are tied in here strongly. The idea that 'The Westminster refused the poem, as they thought it might prejudice recruiting'.

**__Example 2: Wilfred Owen__**

__**Extracts from “The Sentry”**__ [|**[2**]] __**:**__ ‘and the smell of men / Who’d lived there years, and left their curse in the den, / If not their corpses …’ ‘There we herded from the blast’ ‘The sentry’s body; then his rifle, handles’ ‘ We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined / “Oh sir, my eyes – I’m blind – I’m blind, I’m blind” ‘I can’t he sobbed”
 * His first experiences at the Front line…

‘ I try not to remember these things now. Let dread hark back for one word only: how Half-listening to that sentry’s moans and jumps, And the wild chattering of his broken teeth, Renewed most horribly whenever crumps Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath – Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout “I see your lights!” but ours had long died out.
 * Points of interest:**
 * Very personal with the use of speech, 'I can't he sobbed' and the use of 'I', 'I try not to remember these things now'.
 * Also the poem relates to the experience of the poet as he witnesses a sentry lose his sight.
 * They thought the sentru was dead, 'we dredged him up, for killed', the way the poet describes the whole experience allows the reader to imagine and picture the whole event.
 * '"I see your lights!" but ours had long died out' = perhaps not only the reference to the blind sentry, but the sentry being some sort of symbol of something more. The idea of 'someone's lights going out' indicates death, maybe this is foreshadowing the effects and consequences of war.

**__Extracts from “Exposure”__** [|**[3**]] **__:__** ‘Our brain ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us… Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent… Low, drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient… Worried by silence, sentries, whisper, curious, nervous, But nothing happens.’
 * Points of interest:**
 * The final lines, I thought were particularly powerful: 'Worried by silence, sentries, whisper, curious, nervous, / But nothing happens.' perhaps refers to Owen's experiences as he was moved to the front where the anticipation for something to happen was great.
 * The increasing idea of worry seems to occupy the poets thought.
 * The idea of 'But nothing happens.' seems to have double meaning not only for where the poet is but also the idea of a never ending war.

**__Example 3: Mary Borden__** Mary Borden was a nurse during WWI and not only wrote poetry but accounts of what she experienced...

‘The Song of the Mud’

Our fine men, our brave, strong, young men; Our glowing red, shouting, brawny men. Slowly, inch by inch, they have gone down into it, Into its darkness, its thickness, its silence. Slowly, irresistibly, it drew them down, sucked them down, And they were drowned in the thick, bitter, heaving mud. Now it hides them, Oh, so many of them! Under its smooth glistening surface it is hiding them blandly. There is not a trace of them. There is no mark where they went down. The mute enormous mouth of the mud has closed over them. This is the song of the mud, The beautiful glistening golden mud that covers the hills like satin… Mud, the mantle of battles; Mud, the smooth fluid grave of our soldiers: This is the song of the mud.
 * Points of interest:**
 * The mud is referred to with words such as 'thick' and 'silence' implying that the mud 'swallows up' many soldiers, 'And they were drowned in the thick, bitter, heaving mud', 'There is not a trace of them' and 'Slowly, irresistibly, it drew them down, sucked them down'.
 * At one point Borden states, 'The beautiful glistening golden mud that covers the hills like satin' gives new meaning to the mud as previously it has been described as the reason for the death of soldiers.
 * The mud could easily be a metaphor for the war itself, as a nurse, experiencing many casulties, the mud could be the idea of how many lives the war has taken.
 * Of course as well any dead soldiers buried would be in mud as well. The soldiers also seem to be 'lost' in the way that Borden describes the mud, 'not a trace' and 'silence'.

** It’s useful because it lists six world war I poets (this includes Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.) It highlights a key poem from each poet where each is very powerful and gives insight in particular attitudes towards war.  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">This site is useful because it gives a list of poets, some biographies and examples of poems. For extra points of interest this website not only focuses on war poetry from WWI and WWI poets. In particular there are modern poets who have written about the First World War which is very interesting. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">Useful because there is a selection of WWI poems by various different poets. There are other poems for other wars but there are more for WWI. I also noticed there is not only poetry from British writers but there is also a poem from ‘German war poet’, possible different angles. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 15.5pt; COLOR: #671400; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">Three Useful Weblinks
 * http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1914warpoets.html
 * http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> http://website.lineone.net/~nusquam/wpbywar.htm

<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> [1]  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/anthem [2] http://www.englishverse.com/poems/the_sentry <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> [3]  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/blowenexposure.htm