English Poetry during World War I

1
English Poetry during World War I

• What do you think the response to war was in
  England, as much in other European countries?
• It was enthusiastic because a lot of volunteers
  enrolled in the armed forces.
• Some driven by a wish for glory and adventure,
  but most by genuine patriotism. World War One
  Movies
• But after a few months the original enthusiasm
  disappeared and was replaced by discomfort and
  disillusionment.

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English Poetry during World War I

• The heavy number of casualties made conscription
  necessary.
• World War I also brought to an end the illusion
  that problems could be solved peacefully.
• No war before or since then has had such a
  shattering impact on the British population.

3
The War Poets

• In England it was first of all the voice of the
  young poets, called War Poets, that first
  denounced what trench life or death by gas were
  like.
• What was the early response to the war?
• It was a sort of deep romantic sense of patriotic
  duty, as the war went on the attitude changed and
  the poets turned to a more realistic sort of
  poetry, inspired by personal experiences of small
  and great tragedies of thousands of unknown
  people.

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The War Poets

• How to translate experience of war into poetry?
• Obviously, since the experience of war was so
  tragic and devastating, war poets had to find a
  way to translate into poetry what they had
  experienced, or in some case were experiencing.

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The War Poets

• As they realized what the war was really about,
  poets abandoned the romantic vocabulary they had
  previously used and felt the need for new means
  of expression
• new rhythms and new styles that could better
  mirror the harsh reality of war.
• They couldnt have possibly relied on Georgian
  poetry, which was written in smooth rhythms and
  favoured English subjects, idealized rural
  England and avoided contemporary subjects.

6
The War Poets

• The War Poets (Rupert Brooke, Owen Seaman,
  Sigfrid Sasson, Wilfred Owen) shared the same
  experiences.
• but focused on different aspects of the war and
  used different means of expression.

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The War Poets Rupert Brooke

• His war sonnets were written in the first flush
  of patriotism and enthusiasm as a generation
  unused to war rushed to defend king and country.

• If I should die, think only this of meThat
  there's some corner of a foreign fieldThat is
  for ever England. There shall beIn that rich
  earth a richer dust concealedA dust whom
  England bore, shaped, made aware.(from war
  sonnets- sonnet V. the soldier)

8
The War Poets Owen Seaman

• Another example of patriotism is shown by the
  following lines written by O. Seaman
• England, in this great fight to which you
  goBecause, where Honour calls you, go you
  must,Be glad, whatever comes, at least to
  knowYou have your quarrel just.

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The War Poets - Sigfrid Sasson

• Sassoons poems are a combination of pity and
  irony
• Look at his poem Base Details

IF I were fierce, and bald, and short of
breath,Id live with scarlet Majors at the
Base, And speed glum heroes up the line to
death.  Youd see me with my puffy petulant
face, Guzzling and gulping in the best
hotel,   Reading the Roll of Honour. Poor young
chap, Id sayI used to know his father
well Yes, weve lost heavily in this last
scrap.And when the war is done and youth stone
dead, Id toddle safely home and die in bed.
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The War Poets - Sigfrid Sasson

• The irony here is in the comfortable life of the
  commanders the Majors who monitor the war
  from the luxury of hotel rooms, reading with
  indifference the list of dead soldiers who have
  died in the battlefield.
• They will not die in the battlefields of
  Flanders, but securely in their beds, long after
  the war has ended.

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The War Poets Wilfred Owen

• Owen portrayed the idea of war as a cause of
  physical and spiritual mutilation and used
  understatements to bring a certain deal of
  harshness into his poetry.

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Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

• By
• W. Owen

Biography
'My subject is War, and the pity of War. The
Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to
this generation in no sense consolatory. They may
be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn.
That is why the true Poets must be truthful.'
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Biography

• Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born 18 March 1893
  in Oswestry, Shropshire. After his school days he
  took a four-year course as a pupil-teacher. Then
  in 1913, he spent two years in France, as a
  language tutor.
• War was declared in August 1914 and in 1915
  Wilfred wrote to his mother, 'I don't want to
  wear khaki ... But I now do most intensely want
  to fight.' In October he volunteered and was
  sworn into the Artists' Rifles. Eight months
  later he was commissioned as second lieutenant in
  the Manchester Regiment, and in December 1916 he
  left for the Western Front.
• After a last luxurious night in a Folkestone
  hotel, Owen was quickly plunged into the
  realities of active service, and suffered the
  horrors described - only three weeks later - in a
  vivid letter to his mother.
• In May 1917, Owen was diagnosed with shell-shock,
  and he was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital,
  near Edinburgh, in June. Here he met Siegfried
  Sassoon. On 22 September of that year Owen sent a
  final version of his poem 'The Sentry' - as heard
  here in audio extracts - to Sassoon, who made
  sure that it was eventually published.
• Wilfred Owen was awarded the Military Cross
  following his actions on 1-2 October 1918 at
  Joncourt on the Beaurevoir-Fonsomme Line.
  Confirmation of the award came after his death.

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Background

• Since ancient times it has been considered heroic
  to die in war.
• Homers epic poem The Illiad celebrates, among
  other things, the nobility of dying on the
  battlefield.
• This view continued well into the 19th Century
  (and even the 20th Century), and Tennysons
  popular poem The Charge of the Light Brigade
  gives us an idea of how poets and people in
  general thought about the valour of fighting
  and dying for ones country

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Background

• Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them,
  Cannon behind themVolleyd and thunderd When
  can their glory fade? O the wild charge they
  made! All the world wonderd. Honour the charge
  they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six
  hundred

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Background

• These lines by Tennyson may be well written and
  rousing, but they are not very realistic.
• The poets of the First World War changed all that
  with their efforts to give us an accurate
  representation of trench warfare.

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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.

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• 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.

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• GAS! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
• Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time
• But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
• And floundering 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.

20

• In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
• He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

21

• 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

22

• 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,

23

• 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.

24
Theme

• The theme of Dulce et Decorum est is that
• there is neither nobility in war, nor honour in
  fighting for your country.
• Instead there is tragedy, futility and waste of
  human life.

25
Theme

• Wilfred Owen fought in some of the major battles
  of World War I and the reality and horror of war
  shocked him.
• In the face of the desperate suffering he saw
  around him, it was no longer possible to pretend
  warfare was adventurous and heroic.

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Theme

• Instead Owen recorded in his poetry how shocking
  modern warfare was and he sought to describe
  accurately what the conditions were like for
  soldiers at the FrontListen
• Bent-double, like old beggers under sacks,
  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed
  through sludge,

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Theme

• Owen wanted people who were not in the trenches
  the people at home in England to see the
  reality and misery of war.
• He also wanted them to stop telling future
  generations the old lie Dulce et decorum est
  pro patria mori (It is sweet and fitting to die
  for ones country.).
• It is worth noting that these lines were written
  by the poet Horace, two thousand years earlier.

28
Imagery

• Dulce et Decorum est is built around three
  powerful and disturbing images.

29
Imagery

• The first in the opening stanza
• a group of soldiers moves through no-mans land
  in an attempt to get back to the relative safety
  of the trenches.
• Why do you think he does so?

30
Imagery

• Owen wants us to imagine what it was like in
  these trenches to see the detail
• (many had lost their boots)
• and reality of dying in such a place.
• Q. What words does Owen use to describe the
  conditions of the men?

31
Imagery

• Look carefully at the words Owen uses to describe
  the condition of the men
• asleep, lost, limped, blood-shod, lame,
  blind.
• Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But
  limped on, blood-shod. All went lame all blind

32
Imagery

• The second image (found in the second stanza) is
  more dramatic.
• Notice how the first words of the stanza change
  the pace of the poem, making it more urgent as
  the soldiers come under attack and try to put on
  their gas masks before they choke

33
Imagery

• Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
  
• Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time
• The poet manages to get his mask on. After the
  sudden activity of the men.
• the last two lines of this stanza change pace
  again

34
Imagery

• They have an almost dreamlike quality as the poet
  watches from behind his gas mask.
• As the thick green smoke washes over the men,
  the poet uses a striking simile of the sea to
  describe the gas.
• But one man fumbles with his mask and is overcome
  by the fumes and drowns in the sea of thick
  smoke

35
Graphic imagery

• The troops were torn out of their nightmarish
  walk and surrounded by gas bombs.
• How everyone, in "an ecstasy of fumbling" was
  forced to run out into the mist, unaware of their
  fate.
• The graphic images displayed here are profoundly
  affecting and can never be forgotten.

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Imagery

• Dim, through the misty panes and thick green
  light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

37
Imagery

• The dream quality of this stanza gives way, in
  the third and final image
• A picture of the dead man as his body is put on a
  wagon filled with the bodies of other dead
  soldiers

38
Imagery

• His hanging face like a devils sick of sin
• Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
• Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.

39
Imagery

• Although young men went to war with the promise
  of glory and comradeship, in these lines the poet
  presents us with the awful truth about war and
  conflict
• Q. What is the truth?

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• that it is a brutal waste of life that causes
  unspeakable human misery and corruption.

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ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE

• Dulce et Decorum est is a poem filled with
  powerful and harsh music.
• In the opening lines the poet uses alliteration
  (words starting with the same consonant sound)
• What do you think is the effect of such a device?
• to emphasize the tiredness of the soldiers as
  they walk through the sludge. (thick soft mud)

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ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE

• Listen carefully to the lines to see how the
  alliteration gives the poem a slow and heavy
  rhythm
• Bent double, like old beggers under sacks,
  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed
  through sludge

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Rhyme

• In the second stanza the soldiers are attacked
  and the pace of the poem speeds up as the
  soldiers try to put on their gas masks

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Rhyme

• Gas! GAS! Quick boys! An ecstasy of
  fumbling,Fitting the clumsy helmets just in
  time
• But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
  And floundring like a man in fire or lime . .

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Rhyme

• What kind of rhymes does the poet use?
• internal rhyme
• (fumbling / clumsy stumbling / floundring)
• end rhyme (time, lime)
• Why do you think he does so?

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Rhyme

• This use of rhyme gives the poem a change of
  tempo
• it also conveys the confusion and panic of the
  soldiers as they scramble to put on their masks.
• Look for other examples in the poem where the
  poet uses rhyme, half rhyme and alliteration. See
  how these devices are used to change the pace and
  rhythm of the poem.

47
Tone

• What is the tone of the poem?
• Dulce et Decorum est is a very dramatic poem.
  It shows us, like no poem before it, the terrible
  waste of life during World War I.
• The tone of the poem is desperate, shocked and
  angry.

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Metaphors and similes

• people use metaphors because they say "...what we
  want to say more vividly and forcefully..."
• Owen capitalizes greatly on this by using strong
  metaphors and similes .

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Metaphors and similes

• Right off in the first line, he describes the
  troops as being "like old beggars under sacks."
• This not only says that they are tired,
• but that they are so tired they have been
  brought down to the level of beggars who have not
  slept in a bed for weeks on end.

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Metaphors and similes

• Owen also compares the victim's face to the
  devil, seeming corrupted and baneful.
• His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin.
• A metaphor even more effective is one that
  compares "...vile, incurable sores..." with the
  memories of the troops.

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Metaphors and similes

• It not only tells the reader how the troops will
  never forget the experience, but also how they
  are frightening tales.
• The troops will never be able to tell without
  remembering the extremely painful experience.

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Glossary

• knock-kneed having knees that point inwards
  slightly
• sludge -soft thick mud
• Hag an ugly or unpleasant old woman - like a
  witch
• Curse to say or think bad things about someone
  or something because they have made you angry
• Haunting flares segnale luminoso
• Trudgeto walk with slow, heavy steps, especially
  because you are tired
• blood-shod calzando sangue wearing shoes of
  blood
• Lameunable to walk normally because of an enjury
  or tiredness

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Glossary

• Hoots sounds e.g. made by the dropping bombs
• Fumbling to hold or try and move something with
  your hands carelessly.
• Clumsya clumsy object is not easy to use and is
  often large and heavy
• Stumblingto walk unsteadily and often almost
  fall.
• Floundering unable to decide what to say or do
  so that you find it difficult to continue
• Lime calce
• Dim fairly dark or not giving much light
• Plunge to move, fall forwards or backwards
• Guttering breath struggendosi
• Choking beaing unable to
• Flung (v.fling) to trow something violently or
  angrily

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Glossary

• Writhing moving continually because of great
  pain
• like a devil's sick of sin come un diavolo
  stanco del peccato
• Jolt a sudden or violent movement
• gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs Che
  sale gorgogliando dai polmoni distrutti
• bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores on
  innocent tonguesamaro come fiele di
  disgustose, incurabili piaghe su lingue
  innocenti
• Zestenthusiasm

Cud bolo alimentare dei ruminanti
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Italian Translation

• Piegati in due, come vecchi mendicanti sotto i
  sacchi,Ginocchia piegate allinterno, tossendo
  come streghe, bestemmiavamo nel fango,Finchè
  vedemmò il segnale luminoso e cominciammo a
  ritornare, Incominciavamo a trascinarci verso il
  nostro distante riparo.Uomini camminavano
  addormentati. Molti avevano perso le loro
  scarpeMa zoppicavano, vestiti di solo sangue.
  Tutti erano zoppi tutti ciechiUbriachi di
  fatica spesso troppo sordi per sentire il
  rumoreDelle bombe a gas che cadevano
  sofficemente dietro di noi.
• Gas! Gas! Veloci, ragazzi! - Unestasi di
  gesticolio,Mettendosi i buffi elmetti appena in
  tempoMa qualcuno stava ancora gridando e
  inciampando,E lottando come uomini nel fuoco o
  nella calce...Senza chiarezza, attraverso i
  vetri appannati e le fitte luci verdi,Come sotto
  un mare verde, lo vidi annegare.In tutti i miei
  sogni, oltre la mia impotente vista,Si buttava
  verso di me, struggendosi, soffocando,
  affogando.Se in qualche soffocante sogno anche
  tu potessi camminareDietro il carro su cui lo
  gettammo,E guardassi i bianchi occhi roteanti
  sulla sua faccia,La sua cascante faccia, come un
  diavolo stanco dal peccatoSe tu potessi
  ascoltare, ad ogni scossone, il sangueChe sale
  gorgogliando dai polmoni distrutti dalla
  schiuma,Osceno come il cancro, più amaro del
  fieleDi disgustose, incurabili piaghe di lingue
  innocenti,-Mio amico, non diresti con un così
  grande entusiasmoAi ragazzi desiderosi di una
  qualche gloria,La vecchia bugia Dulce et
  decorum estPro patria mori.