Poetry During WWI

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Poetry During WWI

• Elissa Root
• Jenny Contreras

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In Flanders Field

• In Flanders fields the poppies blow
• Between the crosses, row on row,
• That mark our place and in the sky
• The larks, still bravely singing, fly
• Scarce heard amid the guns below.
• We are the Dead. Short days ago
• We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
• Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
• In Flanders fields.
• Take up our quarrel with the foe
• To you from failing hands we throw
• The torch be yours to hold it high.
• If ye break faith with us who die
• We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
• In Flanders fields.

POPPIES
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Poppies symbolize sacrifice
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Poetry

• WWI poetry was written during WWI, 1914-1918 but
  most wasnt published until after the war ended.
• Poetry was a way for the soldiers to express
  their feelings and thoughts about war.
• Poetrys impact on society was that it showed
  everyone what it was actually like for the
  soldiers and not just what the government wanted
  them to know.
• Pre-war poetry differs from WWI poetry because
  pre-war poetry wasnt as dark as the war poetry.
  Pre-war poetry was rarely if ever about death and
  what it was like to witness it.

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Dulce et Decorum est

• 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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped
  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 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
• The old Lie Dulce et Decorum est 
• Pro patria mori.

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Famous picture For Dulce et Decorum est
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(No Transcript)
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Back

• They ask me where Ive been,
• And what Ive done and seen.
• But what can I reply
• Who know it wasnt I,
• But someone just like me,
• Who went across the sea
• And with my head and hands
• Killed men in foreign lands
• Though I must bear the blame,
• Because he bore my name

He stared as a person he liked then came back as
an empty shell, nothing like he was.
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The Messages

• "I cannot quite remember... There were five
• Dropt dead beside me in the trench - and three
• Whispered their last messages to me..."
• Back from the trenches, more dead than alive,
• Stone-deaf and dazed, and with a broken knee,
• He hobbled slowly, muttering vacantly
• "I cannot quite remember... There were five
• Dropt dead beside me in the trench, and three
• Whispered their dying messages to me...

• "Their friends are waiting, wondering how they
  thrive -
• Waiting a word in silence patiently...
• But what they said, or who their friends may be
• "I cannot quite remember... There where five
• Dropt dead beside me in the trench - and three
• Whispered their dying messages to me..."

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A man walking through a trench
Dead soldiers
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The Conscript

• Indifferent, flippant, earnest, but all bored,
• The doctors sit in the glare of electric light
• Watching the endless stream of naked white
• Bodies of men for whom their hasty award
• Means life or death maybe, or the living death
• Of mangled limbs, blind eyes, or a darkened
  brain
• And the chairman, as his monocle falls again,
• Pronounces each doom with easy indifferent
  breath.
• Then suddenly I shudder as I see
• A young man stand before them wearily,
• Cadaverous as one already dead
• But still they stare untroubled as he stands
• With arms outstretched and drooping thorn-crowned
  head,
• The nail-marks glowing in his feet and hands.

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Wilfred Wilson Gibson

• October 2,1878 to May 26,1962
• Never saw active service during his time as an
  army private.
• He wrote poems
• Back, The messages and The Conscript

Wilfred Wilson Gibson
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Comparing Wilfred Gibson poems

• Two of Wilfred Gibsons poems are The Messages
  and Back.
• Back is about a man who went to war and changed
  while he was there. The Messages is about this
  man who is mumbling something about these
  messages he couldnt remember.
• They are alike because they are both about these
  men who went through war. They were changed while
  there in some way or another.

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Comparing continued

• They are different because one was written while
  he was at home the other while he was at war.
  They were affected differently because one was
  changed because he just couldnt stand what he
  had done in the war. The other was a man who just
  couldnt remember what he was told because his
  mind was confused by all of the noise and ruckus
  of the war.

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John McCrae

• 1872-1918
• One of the most known war poets
• Wrote In Flanders Field , one of the most famous
  WWI poem
• A Canadian veteran and a professor of medicine
• Medical officer in WWI
• Died of pneumonia while on active duty in 1918.

John McCrae
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Wilfred Owens

• March 18, 1893 November 4, 1918
• One of the most know war poets
• Wrote Dulce et Decorum est one of the most known
  WWI poem
• Joined commission to the Manchester Regiment
  (15th battalion) in June of 1916
• Suffered from shell-shock

Wilfred Owens
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Comparing Two Poets

• Two major WWI poets are John McCrae and Wilfred
  Owens.
• Their poems differ because they had different
  experiences while they were fighting. McCraes
  poem In Flanders Field was about the dead
  soldiers and Owens poem Dulce et Decorum est was
  about poison gas and what it did to the soldiers.
• They are alike because they both do have to do
  with death of soldiers.

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The pain of seeing their fellow soldiers die gave
these poets the inspiration to write.