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The Great War, Great Poets - Brooke, Owen, Sasson & Rosenberg Traditionally: War Poetry as Propaganda Celebration

of the hero urging young men into battle - wars are declared by old men and fought by young men celebrating the victors and their taking of spoils writing history from the victors' viewpoint Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) 1914 Sonnets The Soldier o 1st person o Tragedy: loss of young lives o Solace: died for something Died of dysentry The Soldier IF I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is forever 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 the 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. Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) Angriest of the war poets Mad Jack Military Cross Poetry emphasizes the England v. England conflict The General GOOD-MORNING; good-morning! the General said When we met him last week on our way to the line. Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of em dead, And were cursing his staff for incompetent swine. Hes a cheery old card, grunted Harry to Jack As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

. . . . But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

satirizes the incompetence of the general anger directed at those most directly responsible for the soldiers fate Harry Jack personalises and depersonalises soldiers Irony makes the situation more vivid The Rear-Guard (Hindenburg Line, April 1917) GROPING along the tunnel, step by step, He winked his prying torch with patching glare From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air. Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know, A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; And he, exploring fifty feet below The rosy gloom of battle overhead.

Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw someone lie Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug, And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug. "I'm looking for headquarters." No reply. "God blast your neck!" (For days he'd had no sleep.) "Get up and guide me through this stinking place." Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap, And flashed his beam across the livid face Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore Agony dying hard ten days before; And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.

Alone he staggered on until he found Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair To the dazed, muttering creatures underground Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound. At last, with sweat of horror in his hair, He climbed through darkness to the twilight air, Unloading hell behind him step by step. Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) Chronically ill and small Volunteer Died shortly before the end of the War Louse Hunting

Nudesstark and glistening, Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces And raging limbs Whirl over the floor one fire. For a shirt verminously busy Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice. And soon the shirt was aflare Over the candle hed lit while we lay.

Then we all sprang up and stript To hunt the verminous brood. Soon like a demons pantomime The place was raging. See the silhouettes agape, See the gibbering shadows Mixed with the battled arms on the wall. See gargantuan hooked fingers Pluck in supreme flesh To smutch supreme littleness. See the merry limbs in hot Highland fling Because some wizard vermin Charmed from the quiet this revel When our ears were half lulled By the dark music Blown from Sleeps trumpet. Returning, We Hear the Larks Sombre the night is. And though we have our lives, we know What sinister threat lies there. Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know This poison-blasted track opens on our camp On a little safe sleep. But hark! joy - joy - strange joy. Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks. Music showering our upturned listning faces.

Death could drop from the dark As easily as song But song only dropped, Like a blind mans dreams on the sand By dangerous tides,

Like a girls dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there, Or her kisses where a serpent hides.

Wilfred Owen (1893-4/11/1918) Above all, I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. 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 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. Apologia Pro Poemate Meo I, too, saw God through mud The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled. War brought more glory to their eyes than blood, And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

Merry it was to laugh there Where death becomes absurd and life absurder. For power was on us as we slashed bones bare Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.

I, too, have dropped off fear Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon, And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear, Past the entanglement where hopes lie strewn; And witnessed exhultation Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl, Shine and lift up with passion of oblation, Seraphic for an hour, though they were foul. I have made fellowships Untold of happy lovers in old song. For love is not the binding of fair lips With the soft silk of eyes that look and long. By joy, whose ribbon slips, But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong; Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips; Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong.

I have perceived much beauty In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight; Heard music in the silentness of duty; Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate. Nevertheless, except you share With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell, Whose world is but a trembling of a flare And heaven but a highway for a shell, You shall not hear their mirth: You shall not come to think them well content By any jest of mine. These men are worth Your tears: You are not worth their merriment.

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