As you read Findley's The Wars, I would like you to read World War 1 poetry and write a blog entry.
Your blog posting must include in this order:
- The poem (including title, poet's name, date)
- Your response
- Everyone must have a unique poem.
- You can reserve your poem by posting the title of the poem you would like to use as soon as you want. Post it here, in this thread.
- When your assignment is ready, just delete your 'reservation' post, and submit your real one.
- You cannot use a poem listed February 2007 posting unless you speak to me by Wednesday of this week.
A Framework for Responding to Poetry
Introduction:
- Briefly introduce the title of the poem and name of the poet.
- Try to classify the type of poem it is e.g. sonnet, ballad, haiku, acrostic, shape, lyric, ode, limerick, elegy, dramatic monologue etc.
- Briefly explain the subject of the poem.
Point One: Explore the Themes of the Poem
- Try to group the ideas in the poem is there a story that the poem tells?
- What do you think the poem is about?
Point Two: Imagery used to express themes
- What are the pictures in the poem?
- Are metaphors/similes used to explain ideas?
- Are the five senses used to evoke certain reactions in the reader?
Point Three: Form and Structure
- How is the poem organized e.g. lines, verses, layout and shape.
- Why has the poet decided to structure the ideas in this way e.g. the sequence of ideas, length of lines, patterns etc.
Point Four: Rhyme and Rhythm
- How does the poem rhyme? E.g. abab or aabb etc.
- What is the rhythm of the poem when read aloud?
- Why has the poet chosen this rhyme and rhythm to express these ideas?
Point Five: Language Patterns
- Think about the sound of the poem and choice of words
- The poet uses specific words because they have a certain association in the reader's mind.
- Look out for alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance, personification, symbolism. How has the poet grouped words to achieve a desired effect?
Conclusion: Poet's message
- What is the poet trying to communicate to the reader?
- How effective are the devices/language that he uses?
- What is your response to the poem?
I suggest trying the school library or the public library before you try the searching the Internet for poems.
Please note, if you use a search engine to look for poetry, please note that "one", "1", and "I" all give different results.
29 comments:
Leaving for the Front
Alfred Lichtenstein
Before I die I must just find this rhyme.
Be quiet, my friends, and do not waste my time.
We’re marching off in company with death.
I only wish my girl would hold her breath.
There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m glad to leave.
Now mother’s crying too. There’s no reprieve.
And now look how the sun’s begun to set.
A nice mass-grave is all that I shall get.
Once more the good old sunset’s glowing red.
In thirteen days I’ll probably be dead.
The poem “Leaving for the Front” is written by a soldier named Alfred Lichtenstein shortly before he leaves to fight in World War 1. It was written on August 7, 1914, towards the beginning of the war. The poem is about the thoughts going through the soldier’s mind before he leaves for the war.
Lichtenstein writes the poem in sets of couplets to make it flow as it is read. It also rhymes in the form of aabb. The poem has a rhythm that is steady throughout. It is easy for the reader to follow because of the rhyming scheme of the poem.
Lichtenstein writes about how his prediction for him leaving is that he will not return. He is expecting that he will not leave the battlefields alive, and writes, “We’re marching off in company with death.” This means that the poet assumes all soldiers who go to war will die at war. Another reference the poet makes to dying in the war is how he ends the poem. It ends with, “In thirteen days, I’ll probably be dead.” He is assuming that shortly after he gets to the war he will be killed. This is a significant part of the poem because seven weeks after Lichtenstein leaves for the war, he was indeed killed. In the line, “I only wish my girl would hold her breath,” the poet could be referring to a girlfriend, and/or his mother. He does not want the women in his life to worry about him. He does not want to see the tears and emotions that he is seeing from them. The soldier, Lichtenstein, is stuck on the thought that he is walking into his own death by going to the war, and by doing this, he can not bear to think that he is leaving loved ones behind.
Lichtenstein uses the colour red as a symbol in the poem. Red symbolizes blood and death. In the line, “And now look how the sun’s begun to set,” the poet is referring to a setting sun being red, and that he is only beginning his journey of blood and death in the war just as the sun has only begun to set. He also refers to the colour red in the line, “Once more the good old sunset’s glowing red.” He does not want to witness any blood and death, but he knows he will.
The poem “Leaving for the Front” is trying to tell the reader how devastating World War 1 was. It was so devastating that before the soldiers left, they assumed they would never be back. If they did come back, they would never be the same. Lichtenstein uses the rhyming couplets to show us the horrors of what the war will be once he leaves. It makes us understand how lucky we are not to have to experience such a horrific event. As men, it makes us feel lucky not to have to go to war, and as women it makes us feel lucky not to have to watch loved ones leave and possibly never come back. War is a terrible thing, and no soldier wants to be a part of it.
Lament
F.S Flint
The young men of the world
Are condemned to death.
They have been called up to die
For the crime of their fathers.
The young men of the world,
The growing, the ripening fruit,
Have been torn from their branches,
While the memory of the blossom
Is sweet in women’s hearts;
They have been cast for a cruel purpose
Into the mashing-press and furnace.
They young men of the world
Look into each other’s eyes,
And read the same words:
Not yet! Not yet!
But soon perhaps, and perhaps certain.
The young men of the world
No longer possess the road:
The road posses them.
They no longer inherit the earth:
The earth inherits them.
They are no longer the master of fire:
Fire is their master;
They serve him, he destroys them.
They no longer rule the waters:
The genius of the sea
Has invented a new monster,
And they fly from its teeth.
They no longer breathe freely:
The genius of the air
Has contrived a new terror
That rends them into pieces.
The young men of the world
Are encompassed with death
He is all about them
In a circle of fire and bayonets.
Weep, weep, o women,
And old men break your hearts.
Response
The poem Lament written by F. S Flint is an elegy. This elegy discusses how young men enter the war with no control of what will happen to them and how the older men are at fault for the war in the first place. It discusses how the young men enter the war so young, they have not lived their life to their fullest, to fight the problems which they had to control over.
This poem is about the young men of the war who died fighting for their country even though they had no part in how it started. These young men went to war, unknowing of what could happen, because of something others had started. The poem is putting the blame of the death of the young men who entered the war to fight for their country on the older men who started the war, “They have been called up to die, for the crime of their fathers”. The poem is saying that all the deaths of the young men and mourning of others could have been avoided if these “older men” did not begin the war in the first place, and that they are to blame.
Flint gives the readers one constant image which is a man, too young to be going to war, facing the hardships of war and eventually death. Flint describes the men as “the growing, the ripening fruit” and that they “have been torn from their branches”, which gives the readers an image of you men are so young they have not been given the chance to live their life to the fullest and are just being stripped of all their opportunities because of the war. Later Flint continues on the constant image of the young men going off to war with no control over their death, “The young men no longer possess the road: the road possesses them. “ , giving the reader the image that the path of these men lives have already been chosen. He continues with “They no longer inherit the earth: the earth inherits them. They are no longer the masters of fire: fire is their master; they serve him, he destroys them.” showing the readers that these young men have lost all control of their lives and in the end it will lead to their death. Flint uses many metaphors which all tell us the same thing that these men fought for their countries and a good thing, but in the end it leads to their death.
Lament has six verses that in the end all lead to the same thing which is the death of the young men who fought in the war. In each verse the poem states that these young men have gone to war to fight for something older men have caused and in the end will pay the price for it. Flint has structured his poem this way to show the readers what World War I was like. All the young men that enter the war lose control of their lives and it eventually leads to their death.
Flint does not follow a particular structure when writing his poem, but he leaves the reader thinking of the death of these young men at the end of each verse which sets the mood of the poem. When read out loud, the poem brings the reader constant reminders of the death these young men will face and makes you wonder why.
Throughout the poem Lament, Flint often uses the word “they” when referring to the young men, which shows us how the older men saw them. To the older men, the young men did not mean much. The young men were just there to fight the war they had started. Flint is showing the readers how the young men were seen to the older men. The poet also grouped together metaphors to show the readers which all come back to the same theme the readers have seen throughout the poem, which is the death of the young men in World War I.
The poem is trying to show the readers that all the mourning throughout World War I and all the lives lost could have been avoided if it were not for the older men. The younger men were punished for the choices the older men made, which in the end affected everyone who knew them. The poet reminds the readers of the age of the young men and how they had no control over lives and no matter how hard they tried in would result in the death of these young men. When the poem keeps reminding the readers of the death these young men will face, it sets the mood for the readers. The readers feel remorse and wonder as to why the whole thing was not avoided. I wonder why these men are punished for the actions and decisions of others, and that if the older men were punished for their actions but later in life. I also wonder if the older men feel any guilt for all the sorrow they caused to others. This poem makes you think about war and how it affected so many, and in the end was it truly worth anything.
Dark clouds are smouldering into red While down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head To watch the glory that returns;
He lifts his fingers toward the skies Where holy brightness breaks inflame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,And on his lips a whispered name.
You'd think, to hear some people talk,That lads go West with sobs and curses,
And sullen faces white as chalk,
Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
But they've been taught the way to do itLike Christian soldiers; not with haste
And shuddering groans; but passing through it with due regard for decent taste.
When a soldier leaves for war he goes with the belief that he is doing his country a good deed but the soldier also knows that he may not come home alive and may fall in the battle. The poem How To Die by Siegrfried Sassoon is a lovely written poem that relates heavily to the experience of war and it takes the shape of a sonnet. The subject of this poem is the most horrific experience of war, death.
The poem tells a very vivid story of the last feelings and last thoughts of a soldier before he is about to die. The poem to me is about the last few moments in the life of a slain soldier and that he is not just going to die but he is going to die quietly and enjoy his last moments of life.
The pictures that are given in this poem are of dark clouds that turn red, craters, tombs, wreaths and hearses which together give the reader a look at the big picture of the concept of war. In this poem only one of the five senses are present and that is sight.
The poem is organized in two simple versus and Sassoon has done this because he wants to show a step by step sequence of what his happening in this particular scene and so that the picture can come together perfectly in the readers imagination. The sequences of ideas are organized from the introduction to the conclusion very well for the same reason.
This poem follows a standard sequence of rhyme which goes abab and it has a rhythm which changes constantly to bring out the feeling of the poem when it is read out loud. Siegfried Sassoon has chosen this rhythm to express the feelings of the poem which are a mixed variety of feelings which change just like the rhythm of the poem . This way the feeling and rhythm of the poem work in harmony.
In the poem there isa lot of symbolism in the poem which Siegfried uses to describe the tone of the scene and also he describes the mood. He does this by first giving the reader a picture of the environment when he describes Dark clouds and craters and then he references the sun by telling of the holy brightness and its reflection in his eyes. Words such as dark, smoldering radiance help describe the feeling of the poem and symbols like tombs, clouds and craters give the readers imagination a more physical description.
Siegfried Sassoon communicates to the reader is that all human beings die and pass way but it is not when one dies and passes a way but how they do it. It is how one spends the last moments of his time in this world before they move on to the next. The devices that Siegfried Sassoon uses really bring out the tone of the poem and sense of the poem. They are very effective in not only giving the reader a picture of the scenario but also sending the message of the poem to the reader. My view is that this poem is a wonderfully written sonnet about war and the end result for many soldiers who go to war. It can let your imagination work and also teach you a lesson, something which I believe any work of literature should do. Siegfried Sassoon has done an excellent job in the writing of the poem and leaves the audience or the reader thinking which is a common goal for many writers and he has done it very well in How To Die.
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)
"How to Die"
Dark clouds are smouldering into red while down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head
to watch the glory that returns;
He lifts his fingers toward the skies where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
And on his lips a whispered name.
You'd think, to hear some people talk,That lads go West with sobs and curses,
And sullen faces white as chalk,
hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
But they've been taught the way to do it like Christian soldiers; not with haste
And shuddering groans; but passing through itwith due regard for decent taste.
The poem How To Die by Siegrfried Sassoon is a lovely written poem that relates heavily to the experience of war and it takes the shape of a sonnet. The subject of this poem is the most horrific experience of war, death.
The poem tells a very vivid story of the last feelings and last thoughts of a soldier before he is about to die. The poem to me is about the last few moments in the life of a slain soldier and that he is not just going to die but he is going to die quietly and enjoy his last moments of life.
The pictures that are given in this poem are of dark clouds that turn red, craters, tombs, wreaths and hearses which together give the reader a look at the big picture of the concept of war. In this poem only one of the five senses are present and that is sight.
The poem is organized in two simple versus and Sassoon has done this because he wants to show a step by step sequence of what his happening in this particular scene and so that the picture can come together perfectly in the readers imagination. The sequences of ideas are organized from the introduction to the conclusion very well for the same reason.
This poem follows standard sequence of rhyme which goes abab and it has a rhythm which changes constantly to bring out the feeling of the poem when it is read out loud. Siegfried Sassoon has chosen this rhythm to express the feelings of the poem which are a mixed variety of feelings which change just like the rhythm of the poem . This way the feeling and rhythm of the poem work in harmony.
In the poem there isa lot of symbolism in the poem which Siegfried uses to describe the tone of the scene and also he describes the mood. He does this by first giving the reader a picture of the environment when he describes Dark clouds and craters and then he references the sun by telling of the holy brightness and its reflection in his eyes. Words such as dark, smoldering radiance help describe the feeling of the poem and symbols like tombs, clouds and craters give the readers imagination a more physical description.
Siegfried Sassoon communicates to the reader is that all human beings die and pass way but it is not when one dies and passes a way but how they do it. It is how one spends the last moments of his time in this world before they move on to the next. The devices that Siegfried Sassoon uses really bring out the tone of the poem and sense of the poem. They are very effective in not only giving the reader a picture of the scenario but also sending the message of the poem to the reader. My view is that this poem is a wonderfully written sonnet about war and the end result for many soldiers who go to war. It can let your imagination work and also teach you a lesson, something which I believe any work of literature should do. Siegfried Sassoon has done an excellent job in the writing of the poem and leaves the audience or the reader thinking which is a common goal for many writers and he has done it very well in How To Die.
The Redeemer
By Siegfried Sassoon
Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep;
It was past twelve on a mid-winter night,
When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep;
There, with much work to do before the light,
We lugged our clay-sucked boots as best we might
Along the trench; sometimes a bullet sang,
And droning shells burst with a hollow bang;
We were soaked, chilled and wretched, every one;
Darkness; the distant wink of a huge gun.
I turned in the black ditch, loathing the storm;
A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare,
And lit the face of what had been a form
Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there;
I say that He was Christ; stiff in the glare,
And leaning forward from His burdening task,
Both arms supporting it; His eyes on mine
Stared from the woeful head that seemed a mask
Of mortal pain in Hell's unholy shine.
No thorny crown, only a woollen cap
He wore-an English soldier, white and strong,
Who loved his time like any simple chap,
Good days of work and sport and homely song;
Now he has learned that nights are very long,
And dawn a watching of the windowed sky.
But to the end, unjudging, he'll endure
Horror and pain, not uncontent to die.
That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure.
He faced me, reeling in his weariness,
Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear.
I say that He was Christ, who wrought to bless
All groping things with freedom bright as air,
And with His mercy washed and made them fair.
Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch,
While we began to struggle along the ditch;
And someone flung his burden in the muck,
Mumbling: 'O Christ Almighty, now I'm stuck!'
Siegfried Sassoon, a war veteran and writer of nearly seventy different poems, displays his poetic brilliance in the rhyming narrative, The Redeemer. Through effective use of language, rhyme and structure, Sassoon not only tells a story, but communicates a powerful message with the reader. This specific poem is about a soldier, most likely Sassoon himself, who is struggling through the long and dark winter nights of the First World War. The flare of a rocket then lights the face of a man, who even though seems to be struggling himself, resembles Jesus Christ in a sense that he is “unjudging” and content with the horror and pain around him. He is the bringer of freedom and light, washing away the unfamiliarity of the war. The redeemer. When the flare ceases, however, the man’s face disappears, and all of the darkness and havoc returns as it was before.
There are two areas that are worth noting when responding to poetry. The first and most important is how well the author shares with the reader a message or theme present in the poem. This poem describes a soldier who is struggling through the hardships of war, but is redeemed by a fellow soldier who is seemingly unaffected by the chaos around him. Obviously, the theme of redemption is present here. The Christ-like soldier is “unjudging” and willing to “endure horror and pain, not uncontent to die” as stated in the last lines of the third verse. The soldier narrating this poem is redeemed, for however short a time, because he saw that redemption can be found even in the darkest of times. Additionally, the theme of light versus dark should be mentioned as well. Darkness surrounds the soldier in the opening of the poem, and he is frightened by the war and everything it brings, as he mentions that he “loathes the storm” in the second verse. When the darkness is erased by the flare of a rocket, it also erases the soldier’s fears, bringing the realization that even in war, light can triumph over dark, even if only for a few seconds.
The second area worth noting when responding to poetry is how the poet uses imagery, structure, rhyme and rhythm to bring forth the theme or universal message in his or her poem. Both the theme of redemption and light versus dark are revealed through imagery and the mental images that Sassoon creates in the reader’s mind. In the first line, he creates an image of darkness, as “darkness” is the first word in the poem. It is also the used in the last line of that same verse. This suggests that Sassoon has made a great effort in pushing across the idea of the darkness in World War One. Then, very quickly, he introduces a very bright and glorifying image when the flare of a rocket illuminates the battlefield. The sudden brightness touches upon both themes at the same time as it expresses the idea that brightness as well as redemption can be found at any time, even in the nightmare of war. Like mental images, Sassoon uses the reader’s emotions to express the themes in his poem. For example, Sassoon utilizes the emotion of fear in the first line, “Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep”. He forces the reader to have a feeling that the soldier is very frightened of his situation.
Sassoon structures this particular poem in four verses, with up to eight, nine, or ten lines within them. The sequence of this soldier’s thoughts takes place in a very short amount of time which is done to form an idea of how something good in war never lasts longer than the sudden bright light of a rocket. Brilliantly, Sassoon also creates an atmosphere of darkness in the first verse, and then a state of brightness in the two following ones. Then just as quick, the darkness returns in the fourth and final verse. He formats his poem this way, as stated before, to create a mental image in the reader’s mind which expresses the themes that he is trying to communicate. Lastly, in regards to rhyme and rhythm, Sassoon does not use any particular rhyming structure (for example, abab or aabb). Instead, he slightly changes the rhyming scheme from verse to verse. A very interesting note is that in the first verse, “light” is used to rhyme with “night”, and a theme mentioned previously was the theme of light versus dark. This poem has a very nice rhythm and is very easy to read, making the theme or message simple to communicate.
I believe the two themes Siegfried Sassoon is trying to communicate with the reader in his poem The Redeemer are redemption and light versus dark. He uses the devices of imagery, structure, rhyme and rhythm to bring forth those two themes very clearly to me. However I cannot conclude until I mention the title of this poem. It is interesting how Sassoon provides the main theme of his poem even before it begins. It is never mentioned directly, but the man that the soldier sees is a symbol of redemption in his eyes, a man who even in the face of death is willing to “endure horror and pain” and who is “not uncontent to die”. This poem touched me in a way that makes me realize how hard it must have been for the soldiers of World War One to find any kind of hope when there is so much death around them. And yet, Sassoon has found a way for me to also realize that redemption and light can be found in any amount of darkness, even in hell on earth.
Siegfried Sassoon
Aftermath
HAVE you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.
Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'
Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.
Analysis:
The poem “Aftermath” is written in the depths of the trenches by a man named Siegfried Sassoon. It is a sestina that dates back to the year 1919. This poem is mainly about how the world’s events changed since the beginning of World War I. Sassoon describes how horrific the days were when being at war. Expressions like nights you watched, piled sandbags and wiring everywhere all describe how war days are exhausting and stressing.
“Aftermath” has different sets of themes. Death, for example is a theme used by Sassoon to express how civilians and soldiers were “slain of the war”. He also uses the theme of destruction to show how war affects the future and society. The poem also talks about war as a “bloody game,” which means that it is a greedy trick used by politicians to show each nation their maximum power. It could also mean a message of warning that responds to threats.
“For the worlds events have rumbled on since those days” describes an image of the start of world issues that are born from the roots of World War I. Time is also a symbol of patience soldiers used “with joy to spare”. The question “have you forgotten yet?” is being repeated in this stanza to show the reader that war days are never forgettable and sticks to the mind like a dark cloud. Eyesight is a certain sense used to describe “corpses rotting” in front of a trench which is a disturbing sight to look at.
The poem is organized into four verses, each consisting of 5 to 7 lines from the beginning to the end. The first two verses talk about how war has left a scar in people’s lives, and the last two reflect on the feelings and mood during the war. Siegfried Sassoon organizes the poem with long lines to fill the readers mind with how war is a terrible event to go through and by asking “have you forgotten yet?” at the beginning of the first verse and at the end of the last verse.
“Aftermath” is a poem that models an a-b-b-c-d-e-a-a pattern. It rhymes with a series of questions in each verse. The poet organizes the poem like that to show as if he is in an interrogation room, wanting to force out disadvantages of war back in the days of frontline duty and patrol.
Aftermath’s sound is to reveal to the reader that all the questions being asked in the poem are questions as if being asked in an interrogation or silent room. It makes the reader feel sorry for the men who lost their lives out in the battlefront. Dark months, haunted, slain, bloody, chill, and doomed are all words used by the poet that have a certain association in the reader’s mind, and they all mean one thing: disaster. Sassoon uses these words in order to evoke the reader’s mood into thinking that soldiers went through a very tough phase in their lives. Sassoon also symbolizes time as patience for soldiers in the trenches.
Sassoon tries to tell the reader that war is not the solution for everything. Also, he states that if a person goes through war, it is very difficult to forget what they have seen, heard and touched while in that event. Sassoon is effective in his language by expressing World War I days in fairly easy verses to read. My response to the poem is that I have also been through war. It is not easy, and I think I am lucky for not going to the front line to fight. It is also not about reading to know feelings about war. It is about seeing and hearing. Events that people see in war are unforgettable.
The Rainbow
by Leslie Coulson
I watch the white dawn gleam,
To the thunder of hidden guns.
I hear the hot shells scream
Through skies as sweet as a dream
Where the silver dawnbreak runs.
And stabbing of light
Scorches the virginal white.
But I feel in my being the old, high, sanctified thrill,
And I thank the gods that dawn is beautiful still.
From death that hurtles by
I crouch in the trench day-long
But up to a cloudless sky
From the ground where our dead men lie
A brown lark soars in song.
Through the tortured air,
Rent by the shrapnel's flare,
Over the troubless dead he carols his fill,
And i thank the gods that the birds are beautiful still.
Where the parapet is low
And level with the eye
Poppies and cornflowers glow
And the corn sways to and fro
In a pattern against the sky.
The gold stalks hide
Bodies of men who died
Charging at dawn through the dew to be killed or to kill.
I thank the gods that the flowers are beautiful still.
When night falls dark we creep
In silence to our dead.
We dig a few feet deep
And leave them there to sleep -
But blood at night is red,
Yea, even at night,
And a dead man's face is white.
And I dry my hands, that are also trained to kill,
And I look at the stars - for the stars are beautiful still.
The poem “The Rainbow” was written by Leslie Coulson, a journalist and poet prior to the war, who lost his life in October of 1916 during the First World War. This poem is classified as lyric since is has a regular rhyme scheme and reveals Coulson’s thoughts and feelings creating a single distinctive impression. “The Rainbow” contrasts Coulson’s observations of the violence and misery of war caused by man with the beauty and innocence of nature created by God.
The main theme of the poem is “hope” as it is about not losing hope in the face of war. Coulson develops this theme in each of the poem’s four verses by contrasting his observations of the violence and death caused by war with his observations of the beauty and innocence of nature that still exists despite the effects of the war. This is exemplified in the first verse of the poem when he writes “To the thunder of hidden guns. I hear the hot shells scream”, and then contrasts this violent vision with a vision of the beauty of nature when he writes “Through skies as sweet as a dream where the silver dawn break runs.” Coulson then concludes the first verse on a positive note that signifies hope when he writes “And I thank the gods that dawn is beautiful still.” Even the title of the poem “The Rainbow” is reflective of the theme of hope in that a rainbow is a symbol of hope.
Coulson uses imagery effectively to express the theme of hope in the face of war. Through his use of imagery with respect to the violence of war, Coulson creates a visual and emotional response from the reader as exemplified when he writes “And stabbing of light scorches the virginal white.” This use of use of figurative language evokes a vision of violence and killing against the purity and innocence of man, contrasting the two extreme characteristics of man as they go head to head in war. To contrast the imagery of war, Coulson also uses figurative language to convey the beauty of nature as illustrated when he writes, “And the corn sways to and fro in a pattern against the sky.” This line creates a visual and emotional response from the reader which is that of calmness and peacefulness, creating an image for the reader which gives them hope for mankind. One instance in the poem where Coulson uses a simile to explain an idea is illustrated when he writes “Through skies as sweet as a dream.” His use of a simile in this line implies that the peacefulness of the sky, as observed from or contrasted with the battlefield, are dream-like. Coulson also uses metaphors to explain ideas in his poem as exemplified when he writes, “I hear the hot shells scream.” This use of a metaphor implies the screams from soldiers as they are hit by the hot shells. The senses Coulson uses to evoke certain reactions in the reader are that of seeing, hearing and feeling. The sense of seeing is exemplified when he writes “I watch the white dawn gleam.” The sense of hearing is illustrated when he writes “I hear that hot shells scream.” The sense of feeling is evoked in the reader when Coulson writes “But I feel in my being the old, high, sanctified thrill.”
With respect to form and structure of this poem, Coulson has structured the poem into four verses, with each verse containing nine lines. The layout and visual shape of the poem is consistent throughout the four verses. Structuring the poem with varying line lengths allows Coulson to get his message across through a series of seven short sentences at the beginning of each verse and then, by concluding each verse with two longer lines, he contrasts violence with nature’s beauty to reinforce his theme of hope. Coulson has decided to structure his ideas in this way to help reinforce poem’s theme by giving the reader a consistent style of structure symbolizing his consistent belief in hope.
The rhyming pattern for each verse of the poem is abaab, aabb. The rhythm of the poem when read aloud has a regular repetition of beat, rise and fall, and stress. The rhyming pattern gives the poem its beat; the contrast of war and nature in the lines within the verses contribute to its tone of its rise and fall; and the repetition of words that occurs in the ninth line of each verse “are beautiful still” stresses Coulson’s theme of hope. He has chosen this rhyme and rhythm pattern to reinforce his belief in hope in the face of war.
Coulson has used language patterns such as alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance, personification, and symbolism, to achieve a desired effect. Through the use of alliteration, as exemplified by “watch the white” and “hear the hot,” he uses the repetition of the first letter of the word that describes the sense to stress the adjectives white and hot. Through the use of onomatopoeia Coulson appeals to the sense of hearing when he uses the words ”shells scream.” Coulson’s use of assonance is evidenced by his use of the rhyming words “sky” and “lie”. Coulson’s use of personification is illustrated when he writes “I hear the hot shells scream.” This figure of speech suggests that the shells form the guns have a human element to them in that they are screaming. The most obvious example of symbolism in this poem is evidenced by the title itself, since a rainbow is meant to represent hope.
The message Coulson is trying to communicate to the reader throughout the poem is that, despite the horrors of war created by man, the beauty of nature created by God such as the dawn, the birds, the flowers and the stars, will survive, giving hope for the future. The devices and language used by Coulson are effective in conveying his theme of hope. My response to this poem is that although war is a living hell, one can find peace and hope in the beauty and innocence of nature.
Gone, Gone Again
Edward Thomas
Gone, gone again,
May, June, July,
And August gone,
Again gone by,
Not memorable
Save that I saw them go,
As past the empty quays
The rivers flow.
And now again,
In the harvest rain,
The Blenheim oranges
Fall grubby from the trees
As when I was young
And when the lost one was here
And when the war began
To turn young men to dung.
Look at the old house,
Outmoded, dignified,
Dark and untenanted,
With grass growing instead
Of the footsteps of life,
The friendliness, the strife;
In its beds have lain
Youth, love, age, and pain:
I am something like that;
Only I am not dead,
Still breathing and interested
In the house that is not dark:--
I am something like that:
Not one pane to reflect the sun,
For the schoolboys to throw at--
They have broken every one.
The years following 1915 were ones full of very meaningful and descriptive poetry as a result of The Great War. While researching different pieces of poetry, I came across a Lyric poem called Gone, Gone Again by Edward Thomas. After reading the poem for the first time, my initial analysis was that it was about the extended length of the war and the amount of lives lost during the war. After reviewing it more then once, I realized the deeper meaning. The poem contains the feelings of one individual who did not go to war and the connections that he was able to make between the scenery at home, and the events that would occur on the battle field.
The ideas of the poem are grouped together chronologically as if the author is thinking back to when recruiting started for the war to the present time that he is writing the poem. I feel this was a very effective way of delivering the poem because it helped me empathize what the writer was feeling regarding his experiences with the war. For example, when he talks about when he saw “them” go, this refers to him watching the soldiers leaving for war and then within the next few stanzas he addresses the fact that since the soldiers have gone, all of the houses are now empty and dark inside.
The way the poem is written leaves the reader with a few pictures as the lines are read. Two of the most dominant pictures that stayed in my mind were those created of the oranges falling off the tree, as well as the house that was unattended with lots of untamed grass growing on the outside. The rotting imagery of the orange helped me make a connection when I started reading the line when the author discusses how the young men that go to war are ultimately sent to be killed and turned into the mud on the battlefield. The picture created of the broken house also reminded me of how a graveyard can be seen as a broken house for the dead corpse to stay in. When the author says that he is somewhat like these dead mean but not interested in a house with no lights on, this made me realize that he feels as though he is close to dying, but knows he does not want to end up dead like the soldiers. One point I believe was not represented in this poem was the use of the five senses. The only sense that was used predominately throughout the poem was seeing while I was picturing the images throughout the poem.
When reading the poem, one can also notice that the structure of the poem was well thought out. Each stanza consists of four lines and the author chose to make each line short and to the point. Some would argue that this is a very lazy approach, but I disagree and feel that keeping the sentences shorter can emphasize what is being discussed. What I found the most enjoyable in regards to the formation of the poem, was the part where the character is referring to how many soldiers have now died and then says ‘Youth, love, age, and pain’. He then goes on to talk about how he is like these soldiers yet he is still living. I believe the words youth, love, age, and pain are what Thomas tries to tell us is inscribed on the headstones in the graveyard for the soldiers. Consequently what follows is how the character feels about the soldiers being dead which was very productive. I feel this way because if the character’s feelings would have been presented first, I do not think it would have lead me to believe that the character that stayed home was alienated his entire life.
What confirmed my belief was near the middle of the poem in the fourth stanza when Thomas writes ‘As when I was young, And when the lost one was here’. This to me makes it seem like he was alone when he was younger and bullied by the other kids. Finally, I also believe he was alienated because Thomas talks about how the windows in the house reflect the sun which can represent happiness, but the schoolboys have broken all of the windows in the house he wanted to live in. In other words, they have taken away any happiness he had when he was little so now he may as well be dead like them.
The way the poem is written in regards to its rhyme and rhythm is a way that I was not familiar with before reading this poem. The only pattern I was able to identify throughout the poem was that the last words of each line would rhyme as long as the idea was finished with that topic. In the first stanza, Thomas comments on the length of time the war has taken, and rhymes the last words of every line because this will be the only stanza he will use to talk about how much time the war took away from everyone. When reading the poem aloud, I feel as though Thomas made the correct decision not rhyming every line, because not only did it signify he had more to say with this subject, but it also made the reader consider reading the lines over again. I feel this way because for an individual who does not read poetry very frequently like myself, you can start to question why the author would not make the lines rhyme and upon rereading the stanza, you sometimes find a deeper understanding of the topic in the stanza.
When rereading a line, you also start to recognize certain words the author uses that catch your attention. I found this happened to me when Thomas touched upon the time when the soldiers are leaving to go to war and relates this to empty docks where the river flows. I thought relating this to water was brilliant because there were always thousands of soldiers leaving and it made me think of the figure of speech some people like to use; “there was a sea of people.” I was also impressed when I read the word pane because I thought it was a good pun to end the poem with. This is because pane is another name for a window, which the schoolboys throw rocks at, but it also represents the pain that the character experienced throughout his whole life because of these school boys.
The most powerful grouped words throughout the entire poem would be the ones used to describe the time passing by in the first stanza. At first, I thought that Thomas was just picking any months to represent time passing, but I soon discovered the deeper meaning. He used these months to represent that to the soldiers the days no longer had meaning, because everyday was the same as the last. These months also signified how the character feels as though all he is doing in life is going through the motions and no matter whether he is at home or in battle, life had become meaningless during the war.
Overall I feel that Edward Thomas does a very good job demonstrating the feelings of not only those at war, but also the ones who chose to stay behind. When researching the poems of World War I, I found that many had to do with the reality of living in the trenches everyday and night, and that it was rare to find one which expressed the feelings of the people left at home. I believe it is important to read about what life was like in the trenches, but I also have a lot of respect for Edward Thomas because he was able to write a poem that was easy for me to relate to even though I was not born at the time of the Great War. This is why I believe Thomas’ reason for writing the poem was to educate all readers that even though life was very hard if you were a part of the war, it was also emotionally draining for those left at home. After reading the poem I find myself almost embarrassed to say that before reading this poem, I thought that the only important piece of writing from the Great War was the poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae. Doing this assignment has definitely influenced me to consider reading more poetry from the Great War to learn more about the emotions of this historical event.
“Noon”
By: Robert Nichols
1917
It is midday; the deep trench glares....
A buzz and blaze of flies....
The hot wind puffs the giddy airs....
The great sun rakes the skies.
No sound in all the stagnant trench
Where forty standing men
Endure the sweat and grit and stench,
Like cattle in a pen.
Sometimes a sniper's bullet whirs
Or twangs the whining wire,
Sometimes a soldier sighs and stirs
As in hell's frying fire.
From out a high, cool cloud descends
An aeroplane's far moan,
The sun strikes down, the thin cloud rends....
The black speck travels on.
And sweating, dizzed, isolate
In the hot trench beneath,
We bide the next shrewd move of fate
Be it of life or death.
In Nichols’ “Noon”, the poem explains life as a soldier in World War One. Nichols organizes his poem in a ballad type layout. It is classified as a ballad type poem because it is narrated by a man of the war which tries to explain the conditions within the trenches. It depicts more then two stanzas and reveals depressing scenery. The main purpose of the poem is to express how it is like to go to war and live in the trenches. The poem explains every detail of the events occurring around the trenches; the humidity in the air, the terrifying sounds, the smells and the objects found from hundreds of miles away. Isolation is a theme expressed in war because it is a place of violence, death and work. Soldiers leave home to go to a place of desertion. Isolation is a central theme within the poem because it describes men having no where else to go except the trenches. Throughout the poem it mentions the extensive heat “The hot wind puffs the giddy airs…/ The great sun rakes the skies” or “ In the hot trench beneath” .The heat represents isolation because there is no where else to go, it is noon and the heat has just began to spread. The soldiers have no shelter or place to keep them cool until evening when the sun sets. Another evidence of isolation is the lack of noise in the air, “A buzz and blaze of flies … / […] No sound in all the stagnant trench” .There is silence within the trenches, only flies can be heard because no one is talking or laughing and nothing can be seen for thousands of miles away. Nichols bases his poem on isolation so that he can clearly demonstrate the conditions of the war.
I think that the poem is about men at war being scared and not knowing whether they rather live or die. “We bide the next shrewd move of fate/ Be it of life or death”. Living a life of uncertainty and isolation causes suffering within a person’s life, so if you were in a position of a soldier would you prefer to live or die? The poem creates a picture of heat, sweat, bugs, dirt and trenches.
This picture is created through the descriptive words Nichols blends together to make a poem so interesting. He uses lines such as “The great sun rakes the skies”, which explains how hot it is in the trenches using personification. Within the poem imagery is created through many similes such as “Endure the sweat and grit and stench, / Like cattle in a pen”, which relates the trenches with the environment that domestic cows live in. The simile helps give the reader a better understanding of the living conditions with trenches in World War One. Imagery is also created using the five senses; hear, smell, taste, sight and touch. Nichols’ description of the five senses helps the reader intake the information using their own five senses. “Sometimes a soldier sighs and stirs. The description is a representation of imagery of sound; words do not have to be read out loud to be heard. It can be heard just by reading in ones’ head. Smell and taste can occur together, an example is “Where forty standing men/ Endure the sweat and grit and stench”. The words create imagery in ones’ head of the smell of forty men in a trench, dirty and having sweat dripping down their face and as they lick their lips a salty taste of sweat enters the body. The images are created in ones’ head like a slideshow or movie, for example “From out a high cool cloud descends/ An aeroplane’s far moan…”, this creates images of a plane in the sky about hundreds of miles above ground. The last sense is touch which is created using the description of the trenches. It creates a sense of touch, the feeling to touch the texture of the sweat or the humidity in the air.
“Noon” is arranged in five quatrains of twenty lines. Nichols has structured the poem in this way to help organize his ideas so that they can blend in nicely from one line to the next. The poem is evenly separated into five quatrains to help the reader have a better understanding of the theme isolation. It also helps create and organize the patterns of rhymes and rhythm.
The poem rhymes using the “abab” rhyming sequence, the first and third line rhyme and the second and the fourth line rhyme. The rhyme is represented effectively to help the poem flow and blend from one sentence to the next so that the reader can have a better understanding of what the writer is trying to say. This is shown throughout the entire poem. Every stanza has a pattern which displays a smooth rhythm throughout the poem. The poet has chosen to present his poem in this manner because it is the best way for the reader to understand, but also place a connection to what the poet is trying to point out.
The reason the poem is so effective is because of Nichols’ choice of words. He uses personification and similes to further explain “the things that I do not know and relating them to the things I do” which Northrop Frye explains in his literary novel. Nichols uses these devices to help define the harsh reality of life within the trenches. He combines words to create visual images such as the words sun and string or clouds and rend. The way he creates his poems is simply unique.
In Robert Nichols’s “Noon” he is defining life within the trenches. The trenches are hot, sweaty, dirty, and the smell is repulsive. Everything the soldiers do within the trenches is isolated from the rest of the world and no one knows the difference anymore between life and death. Nichols’ literary devices and style of writing is effective because he gets the reader thinking but also delivers his story effectively. I believe that the poem is well delivered and interesting. It clearly demonstrates the condition that soldiers had to endure and the life of isolation. The poem creates feelings of sympathy and understanding of the circumstances that World War One veterans had to experience.
Insensibility
- Wilfred Owen, October 1917-January 1918.
I
Happy are men who yet before they are killed
Can let their veins run cold.
Whom no compassion fleers
Or makes their feet
Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
The front line withers,
But they are troops who fade, not flowers
For Poets' tearful fooling:
men, gaps for filling
Losses who might have fought
Longer; but no one bothers.
II
And some cease feeling
Even themselves or for themselves.
Dullness best solves
The tease and doubt of shelling,
And Chance's strange arithmetic
Come simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.
They keep no check on Armies' decimation.
III
Happy are these who lose imagination:
They have enough to carry with ammunition.
Their spirit drags no pack.
Their old wounds save with cold can not more ache.
Having seen all things red,
Their eyes are rid
Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.
And terror's first constriction over,
Thier hearts remain small drawn.
Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle
Now long since ironed,
Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.
IV
Happy the soldier home, with not a notion
How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack,
And many sighs are drained.
Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:
His days are worth forgetting more than not.
He sings along the march
Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,
The long, forlorn, relentless trend
From larger day to huger night.
V
We wise, who with a thought besmirch
Blood over all our soul,
How should we see our task
But through his blunt and lashless eyes?
Alive, he is not vital overmuch;
Dying, not mortal overmuch;
Nor sad, nor proud,
Nor curious at all.
He cannot tell
Old men's placidity from his.
VI
But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,
That they should be as stones.
Wretched are they, and mean
With paucity that never was simplicity.
By choice they made themselves immune
To pity and whatever mourns in man
Before the last sea and the hapless stars;
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;
Whatever shares
The eternal reprocity of tears.
Introduction:
The Poem Insensibility is written by Wildred Owen on October 1917-January 1918. This poem can be classified as an Ode for the fact that it is a lengthy lyric, which often times contains the thoughts and feelings of the poet. The subject of the poem is the affects that the war has on a individual. These irreversible affects are caused by the memories of the horrid war. Each soldiers mind is tainted with the thought of death and blood which are the cause for the lose of feeling an emotion a solider lacks.
Explore the themes of the poem:
The poem insensibility is not based around a story but more like the feelings the author has towards the war. In the first section of the poem the author compares suicide or normal death to death by war. Owens thoughts towards war are that the tragedy of a normal death is non comparable to the horror of death by war. In war ones death is meaning less and will fade just like a flower. A soldiers body has no meaning once death has taken the soul, it is a lonely death where ones body is now as useful as the mud that the living walk on. The only feeling or emotion a comrade may feel is that it is a pity that the deceased soldier could have not fought more. The second section outlines the changes a soldier goes through. The lose of feeling for oneself or for others begins to take the soldiers emotions away. The world around the soldier becomes dull from the effects of doubt and teasing of death by shelling. The third section of the poem outlines the fact that all senses are gone such as the imagination. Ones spirit is heavy with the wounds from the war which are physical and emotional wounds. The soldiers are changed by the blood that they have seen throughout the war that they are unable to see it no longer for the fact that blood reopens the memories of hurt. The soldiers senses are so accustom to death that they the inevitability of death it not a fear to them. In the fourth section of the poem it is stated that those soldiers who are home do not have to face the fact that they may be attacks at any moment. The those who were never trained around the thought of war will never exist as it does in those who experienced it. The fifth section outlines the fact that every soldier has killed and therefore their souls are tainted with blood. Also the task of killing another soldier has become a costume to every soldier that it no longer has an affect. The sixth section reveals that those who have heard the stuns of cannons are motionless like a stone during such a sound. Lastly a soldier no longer has the pity for themselves or for others due to the moans and mourning in the war. Also that a soldier does not have the capability to shed tears for the fact that the tears have become a eternal reciprocity in the war. I think that the poem is completely based around the fact that a soldier changes throughout a war. Those changes are inevitable and become irreversible effects. Ones mind is drastically altered rendering the soldier with grey, emotionless thoughts. I believe that the main message is that the effects of war are so horrid that any other situation such as death would be better than living with the memories of war.
Imagery used to express themes:
One constant image that Owen uses in his poem is the comparison between mind and soul. Another reoccurring theme that is used in the poem is comparing a non tangible item to a tangible item. The image of blood tainting ones soul and the irreversible effects that war has on an individuals mind can be seen as the picture that the author is trying to paint. These are all changes that the soldier goes through during the process of war. An example of a metaphor or simile used to explain this idea would be when the other says “Happy are those who lose imagination, they have enough to carry with ammunition (20-21) ”. Their spirits drag their packs. The thought of imagination is compared to ammunition, the author states that the soldier loses their imagination due to the fact that there is no room for it with all the ammunition. Ammunition is a physical thing whereas the imagination is non-tangible thing, stating that one is unable carry an imagination because they are carrying to much ammunition is comparing a non tangible item with a tangible one. The soldiers mind is overloaded with thoughts of war, that senses that define individuality such as imagination are forgotten. Blood can be seen as the guilt and pain one endured while seeing others die around them along with seeing those that they have killed. “Having seen all things red, their eyes are rid of hurt of the colour of blood forever”. The imagery of blood induces memories and pain to the soldier after war. “Blood over all our soul (41)”. Once again blood represents the memories of pain and suffering along with guilt throughout the war. These memories are heavy on ones soul and are provoked when the soldier is susceptible to the thought or sight of blood again. “That they should be as stones (51)”. This metaphor is used to compare the soldiers spirit and mind to a grey and motionless stone. It is somewhat related to the metaphor know as “heart of stone”. The five senses are used to evoke certain reactions in the reader, these senses also evoke certain reaction in the soldier that the author is writing about. For example “Or make their feet sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers ( 5-6)”. “ Their wounds, save with cold, can not more ache (22-23)”. Both quotes evoke the thought of pain on ones body during war. “Having seen all things red, their eyes are rid (23-24)”. “Their senses in some scorching cautry of battle (28)”. These two quotes evoke the feeling that the images seen in war are so horrendous that they are stored as a painful memory forever. They also paint a picture of war that is incomparable to anything ever seen by someone who has not experienced war first hand.
Form an Structure:
The layout of the poem is that it is divided into six sections, each section having a different point to be covered, but all relating to one theme. The commonality between all the sections are that they begin with Happy are, just as in the beatitude it is blessed are. Each section is around 11 - 16 lines that relate to the same thought that was stated in the beginning of the section. Each section covers a different thought that the author has. The author uses this way of organization because it is easy to understand the message that the author is trying to get to the reader. Each section is different but it relates to the same theme. There is parallelism used to compare every section with each other so that the reader is able to grasp the theme easily.
Rhyme and Rhythm:
The poem Insensibility does not rhyme, but there are often time where a word is repeated and the end of a sentence will have a word that starts with the same letter as the next sentences ending. The rhythm of the poem is a very slow and tempo, each word flows of the readers tongue very easily. The author chose this rhythm to express his ideas because it is suitable for the theme of the poem. It is as if time has stopped and the war is going about before your eyes. The rhythm is what causes that connection between the reader and the context.
Language and pattern:
The author often times uses the word Happy are, referring to the soldiers who avoided a certain aspect of war. The reoccurrence of the word Happy are, add a sense of repetitiveness which adds a flow to the poem. The author often times uses the word blood to describe a picture or image. I believe that the word blood reoccurs in the poem because of the theme and also because as a war veteran Owen has seen all that he is describing. Blood may be a reoccurring memory in his mind from he war. The poet often times groups imagery to a certain word. Also there is a connection between tangible items to non tangible item. The symbolism of blood is a key aspect in the poem, it represents the memories of war as well as guilt. The symbolism of ones mind or metal state is also seen throughout the poem many times. There are oftentimes repetitions of words in a section such as brothers or themselves, as well as Happy are.
Conclusion:
The poet is trying to communicate to the reader that the effects of war are so drastic on a soldier that they go through a transformation. A soldier has horrid memories of the war that are stored, these memories are often triggered by a sense, such as the sight of blood. The language that the poet uses is very effect such as the metaphors he uses and the words he associates with war. My response to the poem is that it truly portrays the effects that war has on the individual. My uncle was in a war and I know that as a person he did change. Everything that Owen stated in his poem is true, from the lose of feelings to the sight of blood or a sudden noise triggering a memory. Also there are some points in the poem that set of a certain reaction for the reader.
RAIN
Edward Thomas
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying tonight or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff.
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be for what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me,
disappoint.
7 January, 1916
The poem that I chose to do was Rain by Edward Thomas. This poem is about Edward Thomas’ time and experiences during the war and how it is always raining. The rain in the poem symbolizes solitude and sorrow and how death is inescapable, just like the rain, during world war one.
The main idea in the poem is that during the war, and any time in life, there are unstoppable and inescapable forces that will try to bring you down like the rain. The poem tells a story of a man at war trying to live through the intense warfare and about a solider trying to anticipate his death. To me the poem is a way for Thomas to express the horror and fear that the war brought to the men who were fighting in it. The soldiers were all alone and there was nothing they could do to escape the fear of dying, because it was an unstoppable force, like the rain.
In Thomas’ “The Rain”, rain is the main symbol being used. Using rain as an image creates feelings of isolation and sorrow and is used to express what the soldiers had to go through physically and emotionally. There are many metaphors and similes being used to explain the idea of death and solitude. “Helpless among the living and the dead, like a cold water among broken reeds.” This is one of many similes in the poem and it shows the reader that the water used to break the reeds, breaks the spirits and dreams of the soldiers. Thomas uses imagery to help the reader connect with the poem and what the soldiers had to go through. Rain is relatable to all of five of the senses because no matter what part of the world you live in it always rains and people can connect to rain because they have seen it and felt it. Thomas uses all of the senses to flush out the soldiers experiences.
“The Rain” is a short poem, consisting of only18 lines. There are no defined stanzas in the poem; however there are three sections of the poem that are divided by either a semi colon or a period dot. I think that Thomas does this because the poem describes three different feelings, solitude, regret and agony. The first, solitude, goes from lines 1 to 7 and shows the reader how the soldiers were alone and nothing could comfort them. The second is regret and it is shown through lines 8 to 14 when the main character talks about his loved ones and how the rain cannot wash away his guilt. The last is agony and is shown at lines 15 to 18 and is when the main character deals with his approaching death.
In “The Rain” there is no particular rhyming scheme. The rhythm of the poem flows easily when read and the use if this is to show the transition from the three feelings expressed in the poem.
The choice of language in Thomas’ poem is used to show the experiences of war through three main topics: solitude, rain and death. These three words pop up throughout the poem several times and it shows the reader what the soldier expected everyday of warfare: death, rain and solitude. This helps the reader connect with the main character’s feelings in a universal way. Thomas uses many literary devices such as symbolism with the rain and assonance when he says “Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain”. This makes the reader more attentive to those words because they have a deeper meaning in the poem.
Thomas is trying to show the reader how war was for those who hadn’t experienced it. He also wanted to show how abrupt death is in life. The use of the word rain throughout the poem was to symbolize that in the beginning rain is a comforting feeling because it brings memories with it, but then at then end it brings feelings of solitude and depression. I liked the poem very much because I hate the rain. When it rains, everything is dark and the world looks more mysterious. To me I feel that the connection of rain to the war is an excellent simile because the war brings out times of depression. And in life when it rains, most people are depressed or gloomy so readers like me can connect with the poem easily.
Exposure
Wilfred Owen
Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife 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.
Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles,
Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.
What are we doing here?
The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow . . .
We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.
Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray,
But nothing happens.
Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.
Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,
With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew,
We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance,
But nothing happens.
Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces—
We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,
Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.
Is it that we are dying?
Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed
With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;
Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed—
We turn back to our dying.
Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
Now ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.
For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid;
Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,
For love of God seems dying.
To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,
Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp.
The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp,
Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,
But nothing happens.
Response
Wilfred Owen used his poetry to communicate to massive crowds who were blinded by false propaganda and could not see the reality of the war conditions. The title “Exposure” gives away the meaning of the poem, in which Owen will be ‘exposing’ the truth of the emotional and physical suffering the soldiers went through.
The poem contains forty lines, divided into eight stanzas. Each stanza tells a different kind of suffering (emotional or physical) presented through weather conditions, fighting conditions or health conditions. He uses ABBAC rhyme, in which the first line rhymes with the fourth one, and the second and the third rhyme with each other.
The last line is exclusive, and in this case it is used to raise the feeling of insanity as the soldiers wait and wait “but nothing happens” and are left with more than enough time to question their sanity, “is it that we are dying?”
This layout forms a sort of movie in the reader’s mind in which the pictures are linked by words and emotions, described by Owen’s own experience.
Owen first introduces the harsh weather conditions using personification, “merciless iced east winds that knife us” creates the feeling that everything is against the soldiers. This “merciless iced” wind, causes physical suffering as well because they have no cover or protection from it.
Owen also uses similes to better describe this suffering situation, “we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire, like twitching agonies of men among its brambles”. He compares the wind’s sound against the wire, with the sound men make in their desperate efforts of freedom when they are surrounded by spines (which most brambles contain). It suggest the itching desire for freedom during war.
Then, he portrays their emotional suffering by using an oxymoron, “the poignant misery of dawn begins to grow”, which contradicts our perception of dawn as being a new start, bringing hope and happiness, to the lack of emotion and suffering the soldiers felt.
Owen continues to describe this effect of war, “all their eyes are ice”, showing the emotional state of soldiers- a blank emotional state.
The health conditions of the soldiers is shortly stated, but its also very important in understanding the reality of war. From the weather conditions we know about their physical suffering, but the “iced east winds” could also have caused colds and probably even pneumonia. Another hint we get, supporting the pneumonia condition of the soldiers, is in the rhyme “snow-dazed.. sun-dozed”, where they inhale viruses and bacteria contained in the earth (snow) which was fill with bodies; and the heat from the sun was probably their only cure due to the lack of proper supplies.
Then uses fire as a symbol which completes the scene of chaos and destruction. He first presents this symbol in “black with snow”, where snow isn’t snow but what is left of a fire (the ashes). Then “with crusted dark-red jewels” he symbolizes the end of a fire, or the end of a battle in which they are allow to retreat for a moment, only so that they later feel they have to “turn back to our dying”.
Owen's literary devices, symbols and language clearly describe the situations he faced during World War 1.
He means for his audience to understand and connect with the atrocities of war, because been a survivor of it, Owen wants people to reflect upon it so no one else has to live it.
I personally like the way he constantly uses “we” and “our” to describe the soldier's situations, which allowed me to make a more personal connection and be part of that 'movie' he describes.
The way he presents his poem can only have one constant response: the questioning of our own sanity, as we ask ourselves ‘why war?’
The Dug-out.
By Siegfried Sassoon in 1953.
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadowed from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head . . . .
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.
Response
The Dug-out, by Siegfried Sassoon is one of the most powerful pieces of the Great War Poetry present today. It is a Dramatic monologue, written in 1953, by a war hero who still experienced “nightmares of the trench-life”. The Dug-out explores the mind-set of soldiers, who witnessed their brothers shed blood and die for their country.
The poem is written about the pain, soldiers suffered during the war. Broken bones, open wounds and trench diseases were just a few of the obstacles for battle. The poem revolves around the thoughts of a soldier, who witnesses his fellow combatant, whom he has a great connection with, walk into the stairway to heaven. It hurts him to see his brother in a state of pain, and hopes that he lives because he is too young to die. The first line of the dramatic monologue, “Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled.”(Sassoon), instantly takes the reader to the battlefield, where intense warfare dwells and takes a soldier to its flames. The main theme of the poem is pain. Psychological pain, that a soldier is in, when he is dragged into a carnage which only leads to blood.
The images “legs ungainly huddled” and “arm bent across your sullen, cold exhausted face” are images that would usually describe the dead. These are the first two images used in the poem by Sassoon to give the reader a sense of pity for a soldier who is either dead or dying. “Deep-shadow’d from the candle’s guttering gold”, is a metaphor used creatively by Sassoon to depict the dying soldier facing away from sunlight on the battlefield or the actual candle light in a hospital room, in which case this may not be considered a metaphor. Since The Dug-out is a brief poem, it does not satisfy all the five senses that may be used in a poem to evoke a reaction in the reader, but it does manage to give a sense of touch to the reader. “And one arm bent across your sullen, cold, exhausted face”, is a line in which, the reader is able to experience the narrator’s thought as he witnesses his friend lay a hand on death. Many argue that the thoughts of Sassoon in the poem are comparable to that of Horatio’s, before the death of prince Hamlet, in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, “Good bye sweet prince.”
The poem is organized in one verse only, since it is a dramatic monologue. It comprises of a total of eight lines, which seems to be short but the amount of ardor in this poem is unimaginable. Siegfried Sassoon may have chosen to keep the poem short because it seems as if the poem would have been longer in length if the dying soldier had continued to suffer the venom of death, but as the soldier opens his eyes, the thoughts of the narrator vanish. It has a couplet at the end, consisting of something that the narrator actually utters to his wounded brother, “You are too young to fall asleep for ever; and when you sleep you remind me of the dead”. This according to many critics is one of the most powerful lines in war poetry since it defines conscription of the Great War.
Since the poem is a dramatic monologue and is very short in length, it does not follow a specific pattern of rhymes. There are only two sets of rhymes in the poem. The first rhyme, the reader encounters is “sullen, cold” and “guttering gold”. This is appropriate since both are the complete opposite of each other, there for making the set an ironic one. The last set evident consists of “head” and “dead”. Sassoon uses this set to portray the feelings of the narrator as he sees his friend respond to him and therefore not reminding him of the dead, since he lives. The poem sounds like a speech by one to another. And it leads directly to the end since it does not divide. After reading the poem, the reader has to go back and read again to fully understand the situation. This was intentional by Sassoon since he wanted to create a realistic situation in which he would suddenly stop towards the end and have a real speech, therefore forcing the reader to read again. “Ungainly huddled”, “Sullen, cold, exhausted face” and “dead” are the most obvious war related words in the poem. The poet had a connection with these words since he was a veteran himself and had experienced situations like this, therefore suggesting that his service definitely influenced the Dug-out. One noticeable symbol from the poem may be “Candle’s guttering gold”. Through this metaphor, Sassoon symbolizes light. Light is a common symbol of knowledge. By this, it can be suggested that, the government lied to people back home so they could keep sending young men to the war where most of them would be slaughtered, not like in the glorious stories told in their countries. “When you sleep you remind me of the dead”, proves that the violent and disturbing image of death is all that is left in the minds of soldiers since death cannot escape a noble mind.
The main message that Sassoon tries to convey in the Dug-out, is very straightforward. War is not necessary. The pain soldiers go through cannot be understood by those who haven’t experienced it. The words chosen by the poet are very strong since the poet experienced warfare himself. I personally cannot relate to the poem since I have not experienced such pain and agony, therefore I respond in deep sorrow for the deceased soldiers, since my identity as a Canadian exists due to the sacrifices that our men made in the Great War.
Bibliography
Sassoon, Siegfried. "The Dug-out." 1953.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003.
Mrs. Porter. Personal interview. 10 Oct. 2008.
The Healers
By Laurence Binyon: 1918
In a vision of the night I saw them,
In the battles of the night.
'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood
They were moving like light,
Light of the reason, guarded
Tense within the will,
As a lantern under a tossing of boughs
Burns steady and still.
With scrutiny calm, and with fingers
Patient as swift
They bind up the hurts and the pain-writhen
Bodies uplift,
Untired and defenceless; around them
With shrieks in its breath
Bursts stark from the terrible horizon
Impersonal death;
But they take not their courage from anger
That blinds the hot being;
They take not their pity from weakness;
Tender, yet seeing;
Feeling, yet nerved to the uttermost;
Keen, like steel;
Yet the wounds of the mind they are stricken with,
Who shall heal?
They endure to have eyes of the watcher
In hell, and not swerve
For an hour from the faith that they follow,
The light that they serve.
Man true to man, to his kindness
That overflows all,
To his spirit erect in the thunder
When all his forts fall, —
This light, in the tiger-mad welter,
They serve and they save.
What song shall be worthy to sing of them —
Braver than the brave?
Response
The Healers is a war poem written by Laurence Binyon sometime after 1916 when he worked as a Red Cross orderly in France. He was never a soldier in the war. It is a lyric style poem that tells a personal story from his point of view. It is a tribute to all the Red Cross medical staff who worked in the war zone. The subject of this poem is the Red Cross medical workers, set to a WW1 background. It describes his and their experiences during the war. Thus the name The Healers. The reader can actually visualize and experience the story through the poet’s eyes.
The poem The Healers is about the men and women who worked in the Red Cross as medical staff in the war zones. The themes of this poem are predominantly the disturbing aspects of war, the feelings of the healers, their thoughts and fears, plus their unwavering commitment to saving lives. As well, the Red Cross staff are highlighted as unsung heroes. There is a religious aspect / undertone in the poem. This is when the poet continues to compare the healers to “light”. It is almost like Laurence considers them to be angels working for God. This is evidenced in the first two lines of the last stanza.
Imagery is used to express themes in this poem. The imagery is one of danger, chaos and destruction. However, at the forefront are the healers. “In hell and not swerve” reminds the reader that war is like hell on earth. The image painted is of the war, with bombs exploding and fighting taking place around the medical workers as they try to save the wounded and dying. The reader can actually visualize these medical workers scrambling to save lives as the war rages around them. The fourth stanza creates the image of the “defenceless” healers sacrificing their own safety to save lives.
“As a lantern under a tossing of boughs” is a simile used to explain that the healers are like a bright lantern shedding light in a place of darkness.
The 3 senses used are sight, sound, and feeling. The first stanza evokes the sense of sight and sound. It immediately engages the reader’s attention and integrates them into the poem’s story. The second stanza quickly causes the reader to feel the conflicting emotions of the Red Cross workers. This continues until the end of the seventh stanza. The eighth stanza allows the reader to feel the pride experience by the healers in remaining true to their beliefs. The first two lines of the ninth and last stanza pay a direct tribute to the Red Cross workers who served during the war. Finally, the last stanza leaves the reader with the question “What song shall be worthy to sing of them- Braver than the brave? “ By ending with a question, the poet allows the reader to continue to ponder their own feelings, impressions and beliefs in terms of who was braver- the soldiers or healers!
The poem The Healers is organized into nine stanzas, comprising of four lines per stanza. The second and fourth lines are shorter than the first and third lines. The poet Binyon has decided to structure his poem this way in order to isolate each thought or image for the reader. The pictures that are created in the reader’s mind are of these valiant Red Cross volunteers working feverishly to save lives as the fighting takes place around them. The first stanza sets the stage, and captures the reader’s attention. The second to eighth stanzas pull the reader into the minds of the healers. The transition from one stanza to the next appears seamless. The poet uses the word “they” throughout his poem in order to remind the reader about who this poem is written for and about. He ensures that he maintains contact with the reader, and allows for the continuing empathy for these saviours.
The poem uses the rhyme sequence ABCB. The second and fourth lines rhyme with each other. The poet chose this pattern in order to isolate the first two lines as a complete sentence. Then he links the third and fourth lines to complete his thought or create an image. By having the second and fourth lines rhyme, the poet creates a flowing rhythm that is easy to read. Therefore, he can grasp and maintain the interest of the reader. The poet wants the reader to feel the emotions of the healers as they go through this experience. The meter is maintained, since the rhyming pattern is continuous until the end of the poem. Since the accents are stressed on every second syllable, this poem is written in iambic pentameter. This appears to be a common style in most, if not all, of Binyon’s poems.
The poet’s use of descriptive words like “roar” and “shrieks” adds the element of sound to this poem. His choice of these types of words creates a thunderous sound to his poem. This is due to the violent association we attribute to these words. The poet groups loud descriptive words together in a stanza. He then uses softer words like “tense” and “steady”. This creates an illusion of “the calm before the storm”, because he then launches back into words like “shrieks” and “bursts”. “This light in the tiger-mad welter” symbolizes the healers as hope for the wounded soldiers. “The light that they serve” is an example of personification and can be construed to be God or a higher being. The linking of these two lines portrays the healers as being saviours. The picture the poet paints in the mind of the reader depicts the healers as angels, shining brightly in the dark desolate warzone.
In conclusion, Laurence Binyon was very intuitive in how he communicated his thoughts and feelings in this poem .His application of poetic devices was successful in achieving his objective of evoking pride, sympathy, and the sense of fear experienced by him and his fellow Red Cross workers. He had first hand knowledge of what it meant to be a Red Cross member during World War 1. Their undying faith and commitment to saving lives was put to the test. Their ability to perform their healing tasks amid the horror of war, the cries/moans of the wounded and the stench of the dead is truly commendable. Therefore, he was able to successfully convey his and their commitment to assisting the wounded and dying soldiers. I enjoyed this poem because it showed the “healing” or positive side of war. It reveals an aspect of the war that is rarely acknowledged. It helped broaden my limited understanding of what war represents. These Red Cross workers are the unsung heroes of all the wars, not just World War 1.
The Lover
By Richard Aldington, Published in 1919
Though I have had friends
And a beautiful love
There is one lover I await above all.
She will not come to me
In the time of soft plum-blossoms
When the air is gay with birds singing
And the sky is a delicate caress;
She will come
From the midst of a vast clamour
With a mist of stars about her
And great beckoning plumes of smoke
Upon her leaping horses.
And she will bend suddenly and clasp me;
She will clutch me with fierce arms
And stab me with a kiss like a wound
Thad bleeds slowly.
But though she will hurt me at first
In her strong gladness
She will soon soothe me gently
And cast upon me an unbreakable sleep
Softly for ever.
Analyzing The Lover
The poem The Lover was written by Richard Aldington and published in 1919. It came in a volume called Images of War, which he wrote after his service in World War One. The book contains many of his poems about the Great War. The Lover can be classified as a free verse poem because it does not rhyme or follow a metrical rhythm. It can also be called a lyric, because it conveys Aldington’s thoughts and emotions about being in the First World War. The subject of this poem is Aldington’s fear of dying in battle. He makes the idea of a lover into a metaphor for death.
The Lover tells a story about a man who truly believes he is going to die in war. The first stanza of the poem discusses Aldington’s fear of death. It shows how Aldington’s life before the war means little to him now, “Though I have had friends / And a beautiful love / There is one lover I await above all” (Aldington 1-3). This one lover is death, more important than all the others in his life, even his significant other (Hilda Doolittle). This says that Aldington has been traumatized by the war and is willing to die to escape it. In the last half of the first stanza he imagines how he will pass, not in a peaceful situation, but in the midst of a great battle, “She will come / From the midst of a vast clamour / With a mist of stars about her / And great beckoning plumes of smoke / Upon her leaping horses.” (8-12). Aldington says how he imagines death coming in a battle, amongst loud noise and fighting with fire and smoke and all things warfare. He describes death as coming to him with horses, suggesting those horses are the horses of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, from the Book of Revelations, in the Bible. To Aldington, World War One is like the apocalypse, brought on by mankind. If Aldington can compare this war to the apocalypse, he must be terrified of it. This would make his desire to die understandable. In the second and third stanzas, Aldington takes the natural fear of death and makes it into a delusion that grants him comfort, “But though she will hurt me at first / In her strong gladness / She will soon soothe me gently / And cast upon me an unbreakable sleep / Softly forever.” (17-21). Aldington wants his death to be peaceful, something beautiful, like a lover’s embrace, ending in a deep sleep. This can be compared to the painting, The Death of General Wolfe, in the sense that both deaths become glamorized. In the painting, Wolfe dies a hero’s death, surrounded by his caring soldiers. In The Lover, Aldington expects death to be like a lover’s kiss. Both works transform death in battle into something bearable and serene instead of something lonely, excruciating and horrifyingly gruesome. The story told in this poem leads to the theme that people transform the reality of death into something they can relate to, something agreeable to their needs.
Aldington uses various images to get the theme of this poem across to the reader. It starts with the picture of, “one lover” (3), giving the reader the idea of a beautiful and romantic woman. This lover develops throughout the poem to become death, “She will clutch me with fierce arms / And stab me with a kiss like a wound […] And cast upon me an unbreakable sleep” (13-20). Aldington uses his imagination, discussed by Northrop Frye in The Educated Imagination, to transform the human shape of death through war into something he wants. He creates a metaphor for death, the lover, so he does not have to fear what he expects will happen to him. Aldington also creates images of war through how he expects death to come, “She will come / From the midst of a vast clamor […] And great beckoning plumes of smoke / Upon her leaping horses” (8-12). He describes war as the apocalypse, the horses referring to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The smoke could refer to the smoking, bottomless pit the horses come out of, mentioned in the Book of Revelations, or the smoke and fire that comes out of the horses’ mouths. Conversely, the smoke could refer to the smoke and fire in battle. Using the apocalypse as a metaphor, Aldington creates the picture of an epic war. A third image is Aldington’s description of his death as he imagines it, “She will clutch me with fierce arms / And stab me with a kiss like a wound […] She will soon soothe me gently / And cast upon me an unbreakable sleep / Softly and forever.” (14-21). This death seems very romantic, as if a woman relieves Aldington of his earthly duties with a kiss, and then comforts him into a soft sleep. A simile is used, comparing the kiss to the act that kills him. Aldington transforms death here, creating a warm embrace that he can look forward to, with another person, instead of a cold and lonely death. All in all, imagery is used with great care and power to add up to the theme of The Lover.
The Lover contains structural elements that reinforce its influence on the reader. The poem is organised into three stanzas; the first is twelve lines, the second four lines, and the third five lines. The poem contains four sentences, the first two in the first stanza, and one for each of the last two. The stanzas are separated by a timeline, the first says when death will come, the second describes how he will be mortally wounded, and the third concludes his death with an endless sleep. Aldington uses this format to create a journey of discovery for the reader. One can see how the, “one lover” (3), develops to become death through Aldington’s imagery. The Lover does not rhyme, but it does have a rhythmic pattern; it flows well when it is read. I think using rhymes would have detracted from the emotion of the poem, putting it within the boundaries of tacky rhyming words. However, the rhythmic flow of the poem makes it very impacting to read. It reads like the tide, flowing and ebbing; coming in with strong, sharp lines, and then receding in the last line of each stanza with something quiet in comparison, “She will bend suddenly and clasp me; / She will clutch me with fierce arms / And stab me with a kiss like a wound / Thad bleeds slowly.” (16). Each stanza leads to a tranquil ending, building up tension, creating a climax, and then ending softly. In addition, Aldington uses various language patterns in the poem. Alliteration is used when saying, “She will soon soothe me gently” (19), to emphasize a soft ‘s’ sound leading towards Aldington’s endless sleep. This line also uses assonance, repeating the “oo” sound, another peaceful and passive sound. Assonance is also used at the beginning, when describing another peaceful scene, “She will not come to me / In the time of soft plum-blossoms” (5). Again, there is a passive ‘of’ and ‘um’ sound. These soothing sounds emphasize that the things described are quiet and peaceful, such as eternal slumber. Personification is used to create a lover out of death. There are various symbols present in the poem, such as the horses, representing the apocalypse, to make a statement about the war. The lover symbolizes death, as does the, “unbreakable sleep” (20). Consequently, these symbols create the theme of the poem, that people transform death.
Richard Aldington conveys through The Lover the idea that people transform death into something they can understand and accept, rather than fear. This is his message to the reader. Aldington uses various literary elements, such as metaphors, symbols, line structure and personification to effectively outline this message. After reading through this poem once, I understood the basic idea, that the lover is death, but as I reread the poem many times, I gained deeper understandings of what this poem was about, to get to the theme. Was I in Aldington’s shoes, I do not think I would wish to die. I love too many things about life to want to leave it. On the other hand, war is a very powerful thing, and affects everyone who participates in it. I cannot give a sure answer because no one knows how war will impact their lives. However, I can give one sure answer to this poem. As I was analyzing it, it posed me the question, ‘How do you transform death?’ After some thought, I came to an answer. For me, death is death; you die no matter what, and how it happens, though it can be scary and painful, is ultimately unimportant. It is what comes after that is important to me. As a Catholic, I believe that death is just a gateway; it leads to the afterlife, the known unknown. I believe it exists and that where we go is a product of our lives on earth. I can accept that I will die, believing that it is not the end. This does not mean I am not scared to die; I would rather be alive here, than in a place I know nothing about. But as in the end it must happen, we must be willing to accept death. My way is by making death into an entry to a new world. And as the poem posed the question to me, I pose the question to you. How do you transform death?
Works Cited
Hernandez, Paul. Prose and Poetry – Richard Aldington. October 15 2008. http://firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/aldington.htm.
Lamplight
By: May Wedderburn Cannan
Date: December 1916
We planned to shake the world together, you and I.
Being young, and very wise;
Now in the light of the green shaded lamp
Almost I see your eyes
Light with the old gay laughter; you and I
Dreamed greatly of an Empire in those days,
Setting our feet upon laborious ways,
And all you asked of fame
Was crossed swords in the Army List;
My Dear, against your name.
We planned a great Empire together, you and I,
Bound only by the sea;
Now in the quiet of a chill Winter's night
Your voice comes hushed to me
Full of forgotten memories: you and I
Dreamed great dreams of our future in those days,
Setting our feet on undiscovered ways,
And all I asked of fame
A scarlet cross on my breast, my Dear,
For the swords by your name.
We shall never shake the world together, you and I,
For you gave your life away;
And I think my heart was broken by war,
Since on a summer day
You took the road we never spoke of; you and I
Dreamed greatly of an Empire in those days;
You set your feet upon the Western ways
And have no need of fame -
There's a scarlet cross on my breast, my Dear,
And a torn cross with your name.
Response:
World War 1 was one of the most memorable wars of all. It was the beginning of having no end, and that’s when the emotions from everyone had taken over the world. These emotions were from soldiers themselves living in the trenches or even witnessing deaths of friends or family. They were also those who didn’t go to the war, but knew friends and family who left them to go. A poem that can reflect the emotions that loved ones had, is “Lamplight” by May Wedderburn Cannan. The poem is about loss of love, it is a story being told about the relationship that the poet had with the love of her life, and how it had all been taken away from her, by World War 1. The poem to me is about, a young girl who was in love with a boy, they were both young and naïve but they really did love each other. They planned everything out in their lives, and they were so happy together. Then of course, something had to take that all away from them, which was World War 1. It seems that the boy had to leave to war, but before he had left, the couple had visited each other, and that day was the last day they got to smell, kiss, hug, or talk to one another.
There are words in the poem, that help picture the situation and the feelings that are portrayed, “Now in a quiet of a Chill Winter’s night”, this gives a distinct picture of what time of year it is, and how the weather may be. Another picture that is presented in the poem is, “There’s a scarlet cross on my breast”, which immediately puts a picture in the eyes of the reader of a women’s breast with a scarlet cross on it. There are senses that evoke certain reactions to the reader; the senses are Sight and sound. Sight is portrayed when it says “Almost I see your eyes”, it brings to mind that these are real people, and the reaction that is common after this is of course is feeling sad. An example of sounds that is revealed in the poem “Lamplight” is, “Your voice comes hushed to me”, a whisper of a voice is something that is heard, and it also gives a sad reaction after reading it because of how unusual the voice now becomes, which indicates that the guy has been gone for a long time.
“Lamplight”, is structured with three verses, Cannan must have decided to structure all these ideas this way, because it gives a more organized look, and it makes all the lines flow. Each verse gives you a better understanding of the story being told. Patterns that are noticed are having the last sentence of every paragraph repeated with “My Dear” and “Your Name”, and also having “you and I”, repeated at the beginning of each verse. All the repeated words have something in common, they all show the attachment that the person had for her loved one, and it illustrates that the theme of the poem is about love.
What is recognized in “Lamplight” is the rhyming scheme which is presented at the bottom of each verse by having 4 words at the end of the sentences rhyme with each other. One example is the last 5 sentences of the first verse.
“Dreamed greatly of an Empire in those days,
Setting our feet upon laborious ways,
And all you asked of fame
Was crossed swords in the Army List;
My Dear, against your name.”
Another rhyming scheme that is recognized is abab, at the beginning of each paragraph after the first sentence. This is throughout all three verses.
“Being young, and very wise;
Now in the light of the green shaded lamp
Almost I see your eyes”
When the poem is read aloud, there is a flowing story being said. It gives the reader a better understanding of how the loss of love could never be forgotten, that is why Cannan had chosen the rhyme and rhythm , to not forget the emotions that she had felt while writing the poem, or going through the situation.
There are no language patterns, other then the repetition of certain words like “My Dear”, “Scarlet cross” and many more. The choice of words that Cannan had chosen are words that helped describing the love her and her boyfriend had.
Cannan is trying to communicate to us, the readers, that love hurts. And that she will never forget the one she loved, because there is a scarlet cross on her breast with his name. She is telling us, that everything that her and her boyfriend had planned, or dreamt of, had all been taken away from them because of war. The language that Cannan uses is brilliant, the words just click all together and the subject of loss love is resembled by her words. This poem is a very sad poem and anyone can relate to her, including myself of the tragedy of losing someone you deeply care about. This poem really gets to me, because at the beginning, I never really understood why the poem was called “Lamplight”, but then I realized the lamplight is where all the old memories, thoughts, and emotions were remembered by. The lamplight is also an indication that sometimes she might wait for him to come back, even though she knows he isn’t. Another realization of the poem that spoke out to me was by this line “And I think my heart was broken by war”. It just goes to show you how the war broke people apart, and it left a bad taste in everybody’s mouth. This line also gets to me, because innocent people were hurt by the war, even though they were not fighting. Also, the boy asked the girl for “ fame”, which means that he didn’t want her to forget him, and this shows to me that he didn’t want to forget her and he loved the girl more then anything. Then the girl says at the end of the poem “Have no need of fame- There’s a scarlet cross on my breast, my Dear, And a torn cross with your name”. This is how the girl keeps the guys memory alive. It also gives me a big lump in my throat, because of how sweet and innocent the love they had for each other was, and how it will always be living. Overall, this poem is a very deep, and emotional poem that brings a few tears down my cheek, because in a way this girl could be me or you losing someone so important to you, your soul mate, the love of your life because of an awful situation occurring.
Remorse- Siegfried Sassoon
Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit,
He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows
Each flash and spouting crash,--each instant lit
When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes
Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders,
"Could anything be worse than this?"--he wonders,
Remembering how he saw those Germans run,
Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees:
Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one
Livid with terror, clutching at his knees. . .
Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs . . . "O hell!"
He thought--"there's things in war one dare not tell
Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads
Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds."
Response
Remorse, is a sonnet written in February of 1918 by Siegrefried Sassoon, a 20th century poet and World War I veteran distinguished by Military Cross for his exceptional bravery. Sassoon enlisted in the British army at the outbreak of WW1 and in 1915 became an officer in the Royal Fusiliers with a posting to the Western Front in France. While recuperating from inflicted wounds in 1917 and increasingly angry with the British war tactics, he became an outspoken pacifist, expressing many of his ideas through satirical, highly anti-war poems. His war poems were intended to convey the ugly, uncomfortable truths of the trenches and the brutality of war to an audience that up until then has been essentially lulled by patriotic propaganda; the bravery and sacrifice of allied forces and the cruelty and cowardice of the German enemy. In Remorse, Sassoon described an Allied soldier who, while walking across a battlefield, contemplated the viciousness and inhumanity of the war and questioned the publically-perceived innocence of the defending armies.
Remorse is a powerful poem with a central anti-war theme reflecting the brutality of war and the lack of humanity of, both, the aggressor and the Allied forces. The wandering Allied soldier, while walking through the gloomy rainy battlefield during active fire, initially preoccupied by his own misfortune, recalls a witnessed incident where his fellow soldiers killed surrendering terrified Germans who were “screaming for mercy” (Sassoon 8) . Through his poem, Sassoon portrays the cruel reality of war where atrocities against humanity were committed by both sides. “Our chaps were sticking 'em [Germans] like pigs . . . O hell!" (Sassoon 11) This lack of respect for human life by the Allies, especially when mercy was sought by running German victims, reflects a direct contradiction to the popular view, where the western WWI propaganda dubbed the British and their allies as heroes of the war, while the Germans as the merciless killers. Unfortunately, Germans were not viewed as individuals, but rather as the collective evil enemy. The western ‘heroes’ were sent to end the war and stop the evil. However, by returning evil for evil, the war transformed the ‘good’ Allied men by robbing them of internal feelings of mercy, compassion and regret. Haunted by events that, “One dare not tell,” (Sassoon 8) the naive fellow citizens at home, Sassoon describes how war ultimately destroys mankind and its civil behaviour, and how it is detrimental not only to the Germans, but to all those involved. Sassoon emphasizes his pacifism and that in war, evil begets evil.
In Remorse, imagery and metaphors are effectively used to convey the Sassoon’s anti-war theme by describing the oppressive gloom of the battlefield and desperation of those involved in the war . In the beginning of the poem, Sassoon establishes the gloomy atmosphere and the melancholic mood of the war by describing the rainy, damp, muddy, and ominous conditions of the battlefield in amidst of gunfire. “Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit,/He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows/Each flash and spouting crash,--each instant lit/When gloom reveals the streaming rain.” (Sassoon 1-4) Sound and sight senses are evoked, as the reader visualizes the murky combat zone and the instant lights associated with the “spouting crash” (Sassoon 3) of gunfire, while sensation of the soldier’s emotional burden and insecurity is sensed as the warrior, “Heavily, blindly [...] blunders” (Sassoon 5) on. Descriptive language describing detailed, vivid pictures portrayed the horror of the war and human fear in the Germans; “Green-faced, [they] dodged and darted: there was one/Livid with terror, clutching at his knees.” (Sassoon 9) The reader feels the hopelessness and dread which dominated the war. The metaphor, “Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs,” (Sassoon 11) was used to exemplify the brutality of the war. Not only does it refer to the butchery of the surrendering German soldiers, but it also represents the whole essence of the war – people ruthlessly mass- murdering each other, transforming battlefields into slaughterhouses.
The poem Remorse is organized into a 14 line verse, structured into two six-line stanzas and a couplet at the end. Sassoon uses this structure to distinguish between the different parts of the poem and convey his anti-war message fluently and in a cohesive form. Each stanza portrays a specific event or issue. The first stanza refers to the actual battlefield and the soldier walking sulkily through it complaining about his situation; it is used to establish mood and illustrate the desperation in the war. The second stanza is about soldier’s recollection of a scene during which his fellow-soldiers were running after the surrendering Germans and mercilessly slaughtering them. Sassoon used this to demonstrate another version of the enemy, to portray the bestiality of the war and the dying of humanity even in the Allied forces. The couplet at the end is the message which Sassoon is depicting; that the men who are regarded as ‘heroes’ committed such acts that no-one would ever dare print in the paper. Each part leads and ties into the next in a unified fashion, thus expressing the theme.
The rhyme of the poem is ababccdedeffgg, with each stanza having an ababcc rhyming scheme. This rhyming lets the reader read each stanza with easy flow, and at the end of the stanza it lets the reader know that a new thought/event is being discussed. Also creates a satirical mood which dominates many of Sassoon’s poems. When reading the poem out loud, the rhythm is slow due to the fact that there are 10-12 syllables per line, and that Sassoon used long and intricate words. This forces the reader to think and analyze each line as she or he reads it; exemplifying the contemplative nature of the poem. Because of this, the poem gains deeper meaning and full understanding with repeated reading.
There are a number of language patterns used in Remorse. Alliteration occurs several times in Sassoon’s poem Remorse: in line 8, “screaming/stumps,” line 9, “dodged/darted,” line 12, “thought there’s things/tell,” line 13, “sitting safe,” and line 14, “Dying/deathless deeds.” The repetition of the initial consonants in those lines makes them easier for the reader to remember and places emphasis on those lines, rendering them important. Traces of assonance can also be found in the poem in line 4, “reveals/streaming,” line 6, “worse/wonders,” and line 14 “heroes/deeds.” Consonance is demonstrated in line 3, “flash/crash,” and in line 5, “Heavily, blindly.” Both the consonance and assonance serve a similar purpose in the poem. They give a sense of continuity or fluidity to the verse, and are used to link words of a specific idea together. For example the full line 3 reads “Each flash and spouting crash – each instant lit,” and consonance links the descriptions of the sounds on a battlefield. They also further help the reader remember the line/verse. Sassoon uses language patterns to help the reader read and understand his poem.
I think that through use of poetic devices and conventions, Sassoon was successful in communicating his anti-war theme in this poem. Firstly, I found that the rhyming scheme made the poem, both, fluent and captivating to read. This poem struck me as being deep and meaningful, with very gripping use of imagery and description. It made me feel compassion for the soldier, and evoked the soldier’s feelings of dread and anguish. In particular, the analogy of being killed like pigs disturbed me, and left me asking myself: how brutal and insensitive to others can mankind get? What Sassoon was conveying was that in a war where evil is returned for evil, all become guilty – Germans and Allies alike, and none have a moral superiority. It seems to me that history has a tendency to repeat itself, and this theme of evil for evil can be related to the incident in 1993 in Somalia involving Canadian troops who were sent there on a peacekeeping mission to stop the violence in the region. However an incident occurred in which a Somali teenager was tortured and murdered by Canadian airborne soldiers, and instead of stopping the evil, the troops propagated the hatred. On a more personal level, when younger, I often argued, and occasionally fought, with my older brother, in retaliation to the wrongs he has done to me. In all cases, retrospectively looking, none of my acts of retribution gave me a true sense of satisfaction, justice or resolution, but rather created a more hostile environment at home with angry parents.
Works Cited
Pelitan, Michael. (2001). Siegfried Sassoon Poems. Retrieved October 18, 2008 from http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/siegfried_sassoon/poems/16836
All the Hills and Vales Along
Charles Sorley
August, 1914
All the hills and vales along
Earth is bursting into song,
And the singers are the chaps
Who are going to die perhaps.
O sing, marching men,
Till the valleys ring again.
Give your gladness to earth's keeping,
So be glad, when you are sleeping.
Cast away regret and rue,
Think what you are marching to.
Little live, great pass.
Jesus Christ and Barabbas
Were found the same day.
This died, that went his way.
So sing with joyful breath,
For why, you are going to death.
Teeming earth will surely store
All the gladness that you pour.
Earth that never doubts nor fears,
Earth that knows of death, not tears,
Earth that bore with joyful ease
Hemlock for Socrates,
Earth that blossomed and was glad
‘Neath the cross that Christ had,
Shall rejoice and blossom too
When the bullet reaches you.
Wherefore, men marching
On the road to death, sing!
Pour your gladness on earth's head,
So be merry, so be dead.
From the hills and valleys earth
Shouts back the sound of mirth,
Tramp of feet and lilt of song
Ringing all the road along.
All the music of their going,
Ringing swinging glad song-throwing,
Earth will echo still, when foot
Lies numb and voice mute.
On, marching men, on
To the gates of death with song.
Sow your gladness for earth's reaping,
So you may be glad, though sleeping.
Strew your gladness on earth's bed,
So be merry, so be dead.
Charles Sorley joined the British army in 1914, at the age of nineteen. His death took place just over a year later during the Battle of Loos on the 13th of October of 1915. Forced, like all soldiers, to mature at rapid speed, Sorley wrote thirty-seven complete poems about his hell-filled year at war in France which display his maturity and honesty whilst depicting the harsh realities of The Great War. One of these poems is All the Hills and Vales Along, which was written in August of 1914, and can best be classified as an ode. The poem clearly defines the weary structure of a soldier’s life, while providing a paradox with the descriptions and imagery provided. These men are trained to commit an act, so life-altering and incomprehensible, as taking another man’s life, while being told that what they are doing is righteous and noble.
The poem mocks the conformity forced upon soldiers. Young men are told to cast away their moral perception, in order to aid the cause, unknowingly eliminating their individual ability to assess right from wrong. In the last two lines of the first stanza, this is made evident. These soldiers are told to surrender their gladness to “earth’s keeping”. They have been trained to believe that, despite the fact that the battle will most likely be the death of them, they are fighting for the benefit of future generations, and that their actions are not only moral, but charitable.
The second stanza represents the tactics which would be used to further persuade the young men of the morality behind their actions. From commanding soldiers to eliminate their regret, to the metaphorical way Jesus is applied, every line is dedicated to this encouragement. Jesus, an innocent man, was crucified alongside Barabbas, a thief, who was promised entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. Applying this to the moral dilemma of war, soldiers are persuaded to believe that Heaven awaits them too, as it did Barabbas. Ironically, the biblical truth can also be used to exploit the fact that while guilty men will die in war, the innocent will die alongside them.
In the third stanza, another reference to a historically tragic death is made. Socrates, a prominent philosopher of ancient times, was executed with the use of hemlock, an earth-grown toxin. The poem exploits the fact that the substance is a product of nature thus portraying the Earth to be the true cause of the death of Socrates. Ironically, in the same stanza, soldiers are told to charitably surrender their futures to the earth, so that she may benefit for generations to come.
The theme, of soldiers abandoning their hopes and dreams for the earth’s sake, recurs throughout the stanzas. The two concluding lines of each stanza are identical in meaning. Organized into increasingly longer stanzas, the repetition allows the lengthy poem to unite in a state of entirety. Because of this, Sorley is capable of incorporating new ideas into each stanza without losing the main theme of the poem.
The structure of the poem is emphasized by the rhyming scheme and the rhythm when read aloud. Written in the simple AABB rhyming scheme, the poem emits a less serious mood than the theme offers. When read allowed, the poem has the same rhythm as a piece of music, fitting, considering the poem defines soldiers as “singers” several times. This carefree, melodic rhythm is particularly obvious within the fourth and final stanza, where the imagery is especially easygoing. With terms such as “mirth”, “lilt of song” and “ringing swinging glad song-throwing”, it is clear that Sorley is mocking the ignorance of the soldiers, as they head toward their death.
Sorley’s poetry is an honest depiction of the Great War, whereas the majority of First World War poets romanticized the events of the war. Through the use of rhythm and melody, he has managed to incorporate a paradox. The poem focuses on the moral dilemma between right and wrong in the matter of war. Soldiers are trained to kill without regret, having been told that what they are doing is for the benefit of the world. This heavy theme is contrasted by the light and easygoing rhythm of the poem. The four-stanza long illustration of what the Great War was to these young soldiers, gives insight as to what could have possibly convinced these men to go to war, a question which people, myself included, have often wondered about.
Two Fusiliers
By Robert Graves
And have we done with War at last?
Well, we've been lucky devils both,
And there's no need of pledge or oath
To bind our lovely friendship fast,
By firmer stuff
Close bound enough.
By wire and wood and stake we're bound,
By Fricourt and by Festubert,
By whipping rain, by the sun's glare,
By all the misery and loud sound,
By a Spring day,
By Picard clay.
Show me the two so closely bound
As we, by the red bond of blood,
By friendship, blossoming from mud,
By Death: we faced him, and we found
Beauty in Death,
In dead men breath.
Response:
Robert Graves was a soldier in World War I, he wrote most of his poetry about this experience. The poem “Two Fusiliers” was published in 1918 with several others in the collection “Fairies and Fusiliers“. In the poem “Two Fusiliers”, Robert Graves surfaces the subject of finding the good through unlikely circumstances. He presents this subject in the form of a dramatic monologue poem.
Graves displays a few ideas in his poem, this being the value of friendship and the contrast between normal life and war life. While looking at these ideas separately there is a common idea that can be found by combining them both; that war alternates any previous knowledge of the world. Friendship is more meaningful in war, a friend now experiences the same war creating a closer bond. This part of the poem depicts the circumstances this friendship must face, “Show me the two so closely bound As we, by the red bond of blood,”. Horrific scenes of war can not be compared to peoples ordinary lives. Everything a soldier has held close to them is completely different now at war, the scenes are incomparable and friendships are more significant.
Grave uses common imagery; like wire and wood and stake tied together, heavy rain, sunny days, and spring time. By using this imagery the reader can relate to it making it easier to explain war. Graves then introduces war imagery resembling battles, loud noises(war noises), blood, and mud. After that he has introduced both types of imagery he then explains war with metaphors, contrasting the two imageries. “By a spring day, By Picard clay.” This line symbolizes the beauty and life found back home in contrast to the ugly, emptiness of war. “By whipping rain, by the sun glare,”, showing the common conditions that soldiers must deal with on a regular basis. When looking at this metaphor it is apparent that these conditions occur in both war and normal life. People can relate to bad weather, making them sympathetic for the conditions soldiers must fight in. By using the sense of sight the audience is able to visualize the realities of war. To broaden the understanding of the horrific visuals of war.
The poems rhyming scheme is in the form abba. Graves chooses to rhyme this way to allow lines aa and bb, to be a direct contrast between ordinary life and war life. The rhyming scheme is not consistent in the middle of the second verse. The reader subconsciously is registering that the words at the end of both (b) lines may rhyme but are opposite ideas; first line is common imagery and second line is war imagery.
“By all the misery and loud sound,
By a Spring day,
By Picard clay. “
He does this at the end of the second verse to make the comparison obvious to the reader.
Graves describes his poem in three versus each containing six lines; the first verse begins to set the mood of being lucky to still be alive, second creates a visual of the horror war scenes, and the third verse shows the beauty in war-the men who have fought in it. Graves structures his ideas by beginning to show how lucky it is to be alive in war and then explains why it is lucky to survive war, which leads to his main idea of beauty in war.
The poem has a serious tone, he uses this to depict the gravity and realty of war. The war is serious therefore in order to explain the war the writer must be serious. Graves constantly uses the word bound throughout the poem to display that the soldiers are bound to war, and bound to fellow soldiers. War itself is trapping once it begins it is nearly impossible to evade. Graves uses the word spring to evoke positive feelings and then uses the word mud in his poem to evoke negative feelings; by using these two words he has given the reader two opposing feelings to associate with. By using these words he is able to give the opposing image of life back home and life at war. Robert Graves uses personification by capitalizing the word death as if it were a name of a man, “By Death: we faced him, and we found Beauty in Death”. He is describing death to be a man and giving it the quality of beauty, even though it is a word. “In dead men breath.”, Graves uses this line to symbolize how heroic soldiers lives are; rather then seeing dead men people see their efforts during the war and in that is where the beauty lies.
The poet Robert Graves, is illustrating the reality of war and that even thought it is awful, good can arise from its horrible circumstances. Freedom, friendship and heroes shine through war. The devices he uses throughout the poem is effective since it jumps from ordinary imagery to war imagery allowing the reader to relate to his war experience. I believe that the poem is effective on displaying the horror and beauty of war. Allowing there not only to be the obvious negative feature of war but as well revealing the beauty that is often concealed. Even though war is never the best approach it leads to some kind of freedom.
The Man He Killed
Thomas Hardy
"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him and he at me,
And killed him in his place.
"I shot him dead because –
Because he was my foe,
Just so – my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
"He thought he'd 'list perhaps,
Off-hand like – just as I –
Was out of work – had sold his traps – No other reason why.
"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown."
This poem, written by Thomas Hardy is a dramatic monologue. This poem explains how if you were to meet someone before the war you would sit together and drink together. But because of the war you become enemies and have to shoot and try to kill each other because of the differences between your countries.
The poem is about a man who is caught in combat with another soldier during the war. He reflects on how things may have been different if he had met the other man before the war and how the circumstances would be different. He questions how they are different “He thought he’d ‘list perhaps, /off-hand like – just as I – /Was out of work – had sold his traps – /No other reason why.” Really these two men are similar because they both must have been conscripted and they now have no job except military service. The man who questions the act of killing another must see similarities of himself in the other man.
The image of two men fighting one another because of the differences their countries share. This image symbolizes that two political leaders that cannot overcome their differences send in their armies to fight to over come them. Basically the image of the two men shows that in the end countless lives are wasted fighting over something so foolish that in the end only one side can ultimately win.
The structure of the poem is the same throughout the whole poem. The third line usually being the longest line, and the first, second and third lines being relatively the same length. The sameness in the structure throughout the whole poem allows for an easier read because of the steadiness throughout. The only major change is the shifting of the idea from one verse to the next because he goes from talking about the war to reflecting upon his actions, and so on.
The rhyme scheme is in a.b.a.b c.d.c.d… pattern, as well as the constant rhythm because of this pattern. I think the author chose this particular rhyme scheme and rhythm because he wanted his readers to be able to read the poem easily. In my opinion, he achieves this because it’s constantly flowing from one line to the next. Also he uses the rhythm and rhyme scheme to change from the idea of killing a man to the idea of man reflecting about hat he has done.
What Thomas Hardy is trying to communicate with this poem is that under certain circumstances two men from neighbouring countries can be friendly. But under the circumstances of war that man who could have been a friend is now an enemy that must be killed. Also, that the very same man you are firing upon could be exactly the same as you are. With that being said, war causes problems for everyone and it poses questions to the soldiers whoa re fighting in the war. My response to this poem is that the person you see as an enemy could in fact have been a friend once upon a time. But under certain conditions you are not to see friends but enemies, even though the people you are fighting are in many ways just like you. Thomas Hardy did an excellent job implementing the rhythm and rhyme scheme to help with the flow of the poem. As well as the excellent imagery of the two men (soldiers) fighting.
Resurrection
Hermann Hagedorn
Not long did we lie on the torn, red field of pain.
We fell, we lay, we slumbered, we took rest,
With the wild nerves quiet at last, and the vexed brain
Cleared of the winged nightmares, and the breast
Freed of the heavy dreams of hearts afar.
We rose at last under the morning star.
We rose, and greeted our brothers, and welcomed our foes.
We rose; like the wheat when the wind is over, we rose.
With shouts we rose, with gasps and incredulous cries,
With bursts of singing, and silence, and awestruck eyes,
With broken laughter, half tears, we rose from the sod,
With welling tears and with glad lips, whispering, "God."
Like babes, refreshed from sleep, like children, we rose,
Brimming with deep content, from our dreamless repose.
And, "What do you call it?" asked one. "I thought I was dead."
"You are," cried another. "We're all of us dead and flat."
"I'm alive as a cricket. There's something wrong with your head."
They stretched their limbs and argued it out where they sat.
And over the wide field friend and foe
Spoke of small things, remembering not old woe
Of war and hunger, hatred and fierce words.
They sat and listened to the brooks and birds,
And watched the starlight perish in pale flame
Wondering what God would look like when He came.
Response
Herman Hagedorn, a remarkable soldier and poet. During world war one, he wrote the poem “Resurrection”, as well as many others. He was an American who fought in world war one and he wrote about his experiences and the life of being a solder. The poem resurrection is a rhyming narrative written in 1917. The poem is about the seriousness and brutality of war. It demonstrates the struggles and suffering of war, the hostile environment, and the sacrifices soldiers made for their countries.
I think the theme of this poem is hope and perseverance. I think the poem is about a day at war. It begins with them reaching to the battle field, and sleeping in the trenches for a night. They wake up in the morning and it is war again, as they have a battle. During the battle, they experience very tragic things, things that will scar them for life. War is not a joke, and it is truly a form of struggle and great suffering. The soldiers suffer mentally and physically. The war ends and the soldiers thank God and ask him for mercy. This is where you begin to see the morals of some of the soldiers. They feel like they are doomed to death, and feel as if they are in hell. One soldier says “We’re all of us dead and flat”. However the fighting finishes, the day is done and it turns night. The soldiers forget the enemy and vice versa, they both do the same thing, they are both very alike. The soldiers sit and talk about small things. They also sit and listened to the brooks and birds, they do so because the brooks and birds symbolize life, and gives them hope and perseverance to continue. They also have a hope that God will save everything that everything will be alright. Although they have been through so much they still maintain faith and hope that God, will save them. “Wondering what God what look like when he came.” They have no choice, deep down many of them know they are going to die, but they have no choice, they must maintain hope, or they will surely die.
In the poem “Resurrection’, Hagedorn is able to bring us many images. However some are more vital than others, and the pictures instill, in our minds. Firstly, I think the reason for the poem even being called the “Resurrection”, is very important. I think what Hagedorn is trying to get across, is that if you survive war it is as if you have resurrected. What he tries to portray is that when you are at war, you are truly in hell, and that all soldiers at war die. He doesn’t necessarily mean physically but mentally as well. When you are at war you are just not the same person, and you are not really living. You just go day to day killing and trying to survive. Even your dreams become stale, you begin to forget what is important and you act differently, war really changes you, and if you survive to tell the tale, it is truly a resurrection. He portrays this very well, when he has dialogue between to soldiers. One of the most significant lines is, “We’re all of us dead and flat”. This is the second most important line next to the last one. I think so because it truly paints the best picture. It has a man who is definitely alive saying that he is dead, and that everyone is dead, even the man talking to him. So this must have further meaning, it paints a picture that tells me that this death may be physically but it can also be mentally. Hagedorn is saying that by just experiencing the war, and being a part of it, it is like death itself. The last line is also very similar to this; it rather even paints the same picture, but gives a bit more detail to it. “Wondering what God would look like when He came.” This is very significant and backs my point that Hagedorn must be trying to give us the mental image of death. I think so because, the only time you would wonder what God looks like, is when you are expecting him to come, when he is near. You do this when you are dead or near death. The main message he’s trying to get across, is that war is hard, it is a giant sacrifice. However don’t matter what happens you will always hold on to a little hope and the picture he paints is when you are at war, you will die, or you will at least experience it as you will be living on the brink of death. And one of the last images I receive is also from the last line, and it is that in war, you are very close to God, and this supports the theme of hope. The five senses are used very well; you can get a sense of reality and can even feel as if you are in the war. He sets an environment around you, which he uses, the senses of sight, sound and touch very well. It stimulates your imagination and helps you understand the poem better.
The “Resurrection” is a poem that consists of 24 lines. The form that is used in this poem is very unique. There are two sequences where the last word in every other line rhymed, but for the rest of the poem the last word in the line rhymed with the last word in the next line. They poem also went in sequence for a day in war. It made a full circle, as it started with sleeping in the night time and ended with the night time. I found that it flowed throughout very well, and they way it is structured, all the very important messages come in at the end, as the beginning and middle rather just built the foundation for the messages that are received at the end.
This poem rhymes throughout, but in 2 distinguished parts the lines rhyme differently.
At the beginning it rhymes abab, for the first 4 lines.
Not long did we lie on the torn, red field of pain.
We fell, we lay, we slumbered, we took rest,
With the wild nerves quiet at last, and the vexed brain
Cleared of the winged nightmares, and the breast
But then the last word in every sentence rhymes with the next like, aabb.
Freed of the heavy dreams of hearts afar.
We rose at last under the morning star.
We rose, and greeted our brothers, and welcomed our foes.
We rose; like the wheat when the wind is over, we rose.
The sequence goes on, abab is repeated once more and then is again followed by a series of aabb.
I think he has chosen this rhythm to keep us interested in the poem, and he inserted two sequences of abab because they are very important especially the second abab part. I think he uses the structure to highlight the important parts.
Hagedorn structures the poem so well. He has structures the poem so that we can experience the setting of the soldiers in the war. It leads to the ironic part of this whole poem that is very important. When the soldier states that everyone is dead. Ironic, because he would have to be alive to say that, but this is the message used in an ironic informality. He also uses similes, personifications, alliteration and symbolism to achieve a desired effect.
To conclude, the Hagedorn is trying to tell, us that war is something that is very hard to be part of, that it is a very hostile environment, and that they are many effects because of it. He tries to tell the reader that while in war there is chaos, and basically that it is hard to keep strong, to have hope and perseverance. All hope is taken form them, the only hope they could hold onto is God. The fact that the poem is call resurrection is very significant, it tells us that when you go to war you, will die. Whether it is actually dying, or becoming a different person as a result of war.
Philip Larkin "MCMXIV"
Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;
And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;
And the countryside not caring
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheats' restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;
Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.
This poem was written by Philip Larkin, the poem was written around the 1960’s. It was written about WWI.
The poem is telling the typical story of how horrible the war was and how it impacted civilization. In the poem I believe Larkin is trying to show how it was in the war, by talking about the trenches, but I also believe he is talking about how the war had had forever changed civilization, as in the poem “ never such innocence again” that was the line in the poem that struck me and made me chose it.
Some pictures in the poem would be the stretched out lines which is representing the trenches, but the way Larkin associates the stretched out lines, with lines on the boarders of parks. To me that represents how people fighting the war, were not to long ago playing on the line in the park. The dark-clothed children playing, to me represented the soldiers in the uniforms fighting the war. The line “ wide open all day”, I believe represents the battle fields because during the war soldiers mostly fought out of the trenches, while the fields would most likely be wide open, and empty. The picture of standing patiently pops into my mind, as trying to say the soldiers are just waiting to know if they will make it out of this war dead or alive, they are being patient for what is yet to come.
The way Larking structured the poem was that he started off with talking about how the trenches were and compared them to everyday life, and then moved into talking about how much the war had changed civilization, how the war impacted the lives of so many. One of the very powerful words Larkin had chosen was innocence, I believe it was the perfect word to chose to describe what was lost after the war. So many men who did come back were never the same, they had lost all that was innocent in them, there is something about those people that lost the purity in them due to what they had seen.
The poet is expressing in the poem the hardships of war , what the soldiers had gone through compared to what they knew in the beginning. One day those men were walking through the parks, and the next were standing in the trenches waiting to face their fate. The Great War had indeed taken away everything that was innocent in these men, and pure, but also it had taken it away from all of civilization. In this war many people had lost their lives, fighting for a cause unknown, but they did it because they believed it was the right thing, but the impact of the war had forever changed society in the past and now.
The Mourners
Robert W. Service
I look into the aching womb of night;
I look across the mist that masks the dead;
The moon is tired and gives but little light,
The stars have gone to bed.
The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain;
A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree;
I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain,
The dead I do not see.
The slain I would not see … and so I lift
My eyes from out the shambles where they lie;
When lo! A million woman-faces drift
Like pale leaves through the sky.
The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears;
But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare
Into the shadow of the coming years
Of fathomless despair.
And some are young and some are very old;
And some are rich, some poor beyond belief;
Yet all are strangely like, set in the mould
Of everlasting grief.
They fill the vast of Heaven, face on face;
And then I see one weeping with the rest,
Whose eyes beseech me for a moment’s space …
Oh! Eyes I love the best!
Nay, I but dream. The sky is all forlorn,
And there’s the plain of battle writhing red:
God pity them, the women-folk who mourn!
How happy are the dead.
The poem “The Mourners” is written by Robert W. Service, an ambulance driver and correspondent in World War 1. It was published in 1916 into Rhymes of a Red Cross Man. The poem is about what war looks like from a stand-by perspective, and the sadness and frailty of the war.
Service is telling a story, a story of what he observed while being away at war. He does an excellent job of capturing the desolation of the war. He speaks of the hopelessness and ugliness that are left behind for the earth and for ‘the mourners’. I think Service is telling us that the suffering of the soldiers who fought in the war has ended and they have found peace, but their loved ones are left to mourn and suffer the horrors of war until they die.
Service uses imagery in the first two paragraphs of the poem to grab you and make you feel something of what it felt like in the atmosphere of a war zone. He writes “I look into the aching womb of night;” which gives you the image of sadness and emptiness, and the loneliness in which they felt from being away. The way he goes on to describe the earth: “sick and seems to breathe with pain” really makes you feel the hopelessness of war.
Service carefully built his poem by first describing the scenery and emotions of the battlefield. Although he briefly describes the corpses his aim is to take the reader into the suffering of the survivors. Service is telling the story of hopelessness and despair and he has structured his poem to build up the grief of his subject.
The writer uses 7 stanzas of 4 lines each to give a slower more dramatic beat to the poem. He alternately rhymes each line for a flow in words. Service chose to write with this rhyming style in order to compliment his subject matter, each short stanza succinctly captures the mood.
Service picked his choice of words with respect and honor. He put his words together in a way that made the reader connect with the storyline of the poem. Most of the words he used were dark and depressing, to make you think about the atmosphere of war, and the feelings and emotions that one would go through being put in that situation. He combined something that anybody could relate to such as the moon, and the stars, and paired them up with sorrow felt words, to make you realize how negative you would look at something so beautiful.
I believe the authors aim was to inform the reader of the horrors of war and the sorrows of the loved ones left behind. His use of carefully chosen imagery leaves a lasting impression with the reader and evokes strong emotion. In reading “The Mourners” I was transported back to the battlefield of World War 1 and could almost feel the ghosts of those who have passed. His use of devices such as his dream of the various mourners was particularly touching. The language that Service used to describe this event was brilliant and artful, and the way in which he structured his poem truly drew me in to his world.
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 disappointed shells 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 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.
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.
Response:
This poem, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, was made by Wilfred Owen. The title of the poem is in French, which translated in English means, “It is sweet and right”. After reading the poem, it can be classified as a narrative poem and also a bio. A narrative poem is poem that tells a story; a bio is a poem “written about oneself’s life, personality traits, and ambitions”. Owen wrote this poem while he was fighting in World War I, and wrote it in accordance to the events surrounding his life in war, telling his own story of it. He speaks of the many horrors it brought into his life, and an in-depth explanation of his experience, admitting that it is not, in fact, “sweet and right” to die for one’s country.
The last line of the poem, “Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori”, means “It is sweet and right to die for your country”. This poem talks of the deception behind this line, and the truth to war. Innocent children are told, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”, when in reality, it is simply just a lie. Wilfred Owen unveils the truth to the reader and explains what really happens when a soldier is sent to the battle field. It is not fun; it is not easy; and it is definitely not a game. War is not a sweet battle for one’s country, but a universal battle between life and death. I think that this poem is an indication that there is no real point to war. Although many men and women enlist in war to fight for one’s country, the only battle that every soldier fights is the real war between life and death.
Owen is able make a great use of simple words in order illustrate the pictures of war within the reader’s mind. The reader can imagine a soldier’s surroundings in the trenches, the battle itself, and the hardships of simply being able to move from place to place in a battlefield on one’s feet: “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks […] coughing like hags…drunk with fatigue”. Soldiers always have to be attentive to their surroundings and careful in the fields; anyone can attack any time: “Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling […] flound’ring like a man in fire or lime … Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea”. Every soldier’s senses are sensitive to every sound, every touch, every smell, and every sight: “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”. Through some uses of personification, similes, and metaphors, the reader can get an image of how hard it is to get by every day, much more when a soldier is injured. The battle is chaotic; the mind turns to chaos.
In my opinion, Wilfred Owen structures his poem in chronological order. The first verse (first 8 lines) describes the preparation, and the state of the soldiers’ minds before they enter the battle. The second verse explains the ferocity of the war itself, and the almost impossible situations that one cannot normally face. The third verse deals with the results after going into battle, and returning back to base behind the trenches. Many are injured and many come back with minds relapsing to the battle fought. In my opinion, Owen decided to write this poem in the chronological order of the events in war to be able to pull the reader into his day. He wants the reader to be able to experience all that he experienced, as close as possible to his reality in that very moment.
The poem rhymes in an ‘abababab’ pattern. When read out loud, the rhyme, in my opinion, stresses each line. By using this rhythm and pattern, Owen is able to emphasize every line in order to create a defined image in the reader’s mind. He manipulates the rhythm and pattern to lure the reader’s mind into the poem itself. Then as soon as the reader reads, the stress in every line makes the reader think about every word associated in that line. The rhythm brings all the lines together, being the music that the reader automatically and mentally makes to the story told.
The writer, Wilfred Owen, has a creative choice of words. They are very simple, but well-defined. Throughout his poem, the reader can notice Owen’s use of personification. He uses human characteristics to give life to non-living things or objects in his poem. Through the use of personification, such as: “clumsy helmets” or “hanging face”, the reader can easily picture what is happening in the story by relating it to their own characteristics. Through other uses of personification, such as: “haunting flares”, the reader is able to easily see the effects of an event in the writer’s mind or life. Through “haunting flares”, the reader can perceive that the bombs or the sound of flares going up into the sky haunt their memories; it cannot be forgotten. By using personification, the reader can relate more effectively to the many situations in the poem.
Through “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, Wilfred Owen is trying to communicate the truth of war to the reader. He uses the rhythm and pattern, similes, metaphors, and personification through simple words to tell a story; his story. Through using these, he is able to allow the reader to relate to the different situations he is faced and understand that “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” is a complete lie. I can relate to what he is trying to tell the readers of this poem. My grandfather went to war, thinking that it would be nice to serve his country justice, but when he came back, he was physically there, but I could always tell that his mind was always off somewhere else. There were many time that I wished I could just say, “What happened?” but I knew I would never get the truth as the answer. I was a child. He did not want to tell me that he lost himself, and that “it is not sweet and right to die for your country”. He came back alive, but there was a part of him that died in war. I was a child back then, but I understood that he would not be the same – if not soon, never.
Greater Love - Wilfred Owen
Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!
Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce Love they bear
Cramps them in death’s extreme decrepitude.
Your voice sings not so softly,
Though even as wind murmuring through rafted loft,
Your dear voice is not dear,
As theirs whom none now hear
Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.
Heart, you were never hot,
Nor large, nor full like heart made great with shot;
And thought your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.
“Greater Love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” John 15:13
This sonnet appears to be a comparison between the personification of physical beauty of the “Greater Love” to the gruesome realities of war, and the love the soldiers have for their fellow soldiers and friends.
This poem appears to be a story of brotherly love between the soldiers, and for those who have sacrificed themselves for other soldiers, family, and for what they would have known as the greater good. The sacrifices faced by the soldiers has made their love greater in beauty and more realistic. This “Greater Love” is perceived as a love more superior then erotic love. I believe that this poem is about something omniscient having control over the fate of the soldiers. I also believe it is about sacrifice for friends and other soldiers.
The imagery used throughout the poem depicts the gruesome scenes of war and the comparison of these scenes to the personification of love and physical beauty.
“Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones by the English dead”
Here the poet is trying to express that no ones love is as strong as the human bloodshed during the war. This helps the reader compare the gruesome details of war to physical characteristics of humanity. The poet also uses the human senses to make connections with the reader.
“Your slender attitude
Trembles even as wind murmuring through raftered loft
Your dear voice is not clear”
This excerpt from the poem not only contains the use of the human sense of hearing to connect with the reader, it also uses a form of onomatopoeia. These lines can really connect with the reader because of its expressive description. Also throughout this poem there is a lot of symbolism, many of this is through the comparison of love and beauty to the horrific details and realities of war. This is to exemplify the brotherly love that the soldiers have for each other also the sacrifices they made. The organization of the poem is into six four line stanzas. The poems rhyme scheme is partial or imperfect also known as pararhyme. This pararhyme scheme is a specific feature in Wilfred Owens poetry. The tone of this poem is very dry, and the beat is stable.
Wilfred Owen is trying to communicate to the reader that no matter how tough things may get, the love that the soldiers have for each other is stronger then anything that has been thrown at them, and the sacrifice that they made is demonstrating their greater love. “Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not” Owen is also trying to show that this greater love is an aid to forgive them of what they have wronged.
“Jesus saith unto [Mary Magdalene] women why weepest thou?… Jesus said unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my father” John 21:15-17
This poem truly showed me the connections and bonds that the soldiers made while they were fighting in the war, and that any man would make a sacrifice for their friend, and this is proving their ‘Greater love.’ I think this poem was very effective in the way that Owen compared the dreadful evidence and reality of war, to the physical characteristics in human beauty, and the comradeship that the soldiers shared.
Pluck
Crippled for life at seventeen,
His great eyes seem to question why:
With both legs smashed it might have been
Better in that grim trench to die
Than drag maimed years out helplessly.
A child – so wasted and so white,
He told a lie to get his way,
To march, a man with men, and fight
While other boys are still at play.
A gallant lie your heart will say.
So broke with pain, he shrinks in dread
To see the 'dresser' drawing near;
And winds the clothes about his head
That none may see his heart-sick fear.
His shaking, strangled sobs you hear.
But when the dreaded moment's there
He'll face us all, a soldier yet,
Watch his bared wounds with unmoved air,
(Though tell-tale lashes still are wet),
And smoke his woodbine cigarette.
- Eva Dobell
Response
The previous poem is Pluck, by Eva Dobell. The poem is a rhyming narrative. The poem is about a teenage soldiers soldier with the desire to fight in world war one. The narrative gives us an insight on how the protagonist got crippled in the war, and now looking back he regrets how he had chosen to fight in the army.
The poem tells the tale of the many teenagers that lied so that they could fight in world war one. The reader is introduced to the protagonist who is “Crippled for life at seventeen “,and doubts his decision to enter the war, as he “told a lie to get his way, To march, a man with men, and fight”. The reader can see how much he hates the war as he questions whether it is “Better in that grim trench to die”, and has a “heart-sick fear. His shaking, strangled sobs you hear”. However, when it comes down to it “He'll face us all, a soldier yet”.
Throughout the poem, the use of imagery is apparent. From the beginning one is told that this soldier has “both legs smashed”, without the use of his legs he has lost mobility, which is also a loss of freedom. It relates to the freedom that he lost from the moment he enlists in the army. The next use of imagery is when his “bared wounds” are brought to attention, this initiates a feeling of vulnerability, which represents how vulnerable the soldiers are at war, and as the wounds are dealt with “with unmoved air”, so are the soldiers, who are not dealt with compassion, but are forced to face others with the same vulnerability, this being enemy soldiers who are in an identical situation. The last use of imagery is that the soldier is to “smoke his woodbine cigarette”; Eva Dobell includes this to show how harsh the war is. The woodbine is a brand of cigarettes that are strong and unfiltered. The woodbine represents the war in the eyes of a seventeen year old, as being hell on earth, and therefore very harsh. The war was also unfiltered for those on the frontlines, as there were no cover-ups, and was just a man versus man conflict.
The writing style of the poem uses no metaphors or similes, it is very direct and upfront, it does not use comparisons for identification, as the reader is expected to have knowledge as to how horrible war was, especially for a seventeen year old. Within the poem, the reader sees and hears the character, which is represented from a third person view point. The poem illustrates that the protagonist is frozen in time and trapped in his current situation. The reader is shown the unexpected side of the soldier as one can hear his “shaking, strangled sobs”, making the soldier more personal and human. The language used by Eva Dobell is very harsh, direct, honest, and this tone can be observed from the language from the beginning as he is “Crippled for life at seventeen”. Eva does not hold anything back, and tells the reader the effects and damage left by the war. Personification is also used to emphasize that cold and direct language, an instance of this being when the reader is told about the soldier’s “heart-sick fear”, and about the “unmoved air”. Personification lets the reader identify the intensity of the soldier’s fear.
The poem is written with five lines in each verse. The entire poem, excluding the first verse, follows the rhyming scheme of ababb. The author has structured this poem this way, so that it is brief, but still has an immense impact on the reader; it is very direct and to the point. The rhythm of the poem is an iambic rhythm. Though the last line does not fit within the complete description of an iambic rhythm, the rhythm of this poem is best described as iambic. The poem’s style and rhythm are very common to American writers, so judging from what Northrop Frye’s theory that one writes, similar to the style that they read, Eva Dobell probably used this writing style, because most of the literature she read was American.
The poet uses this poem to communicate to the reader the story of world war one from the big contingent of young soldiers that chose to fight in the war. The poet gives a voice to how the war made these soldiers lose their childhood and innocence, “While other boys are still at play”. The language used is very direct and leaves the poem with a very honest and sincere feeling. One’s response to the poem is that one realizes how sacred childhood is, and how the war ruined many childhood experiences and cut their youth short. It also shows us how war does not only ruin those who die, but it also damages the lives of those who survive.
Dead Man's Dump
Composed By: Isaac Rosenberg
1916 - 1918
The plunging limbers over the shattered track
Racketed with their rusty freight,
Stuck out like many crowns of thorns,
And the rusty stakes like sceptres old
To stay the flood of brutish men
Upon our brothers dear.
The wheels lurched over sprawled dead
But pained them not, though their bones crunched,
Their shut mouths made no moan.
They lie there huddled, friend and foeman,
Man born of man, and born of woman,
And shells go crying over them
From night till night and now.
Earth has waited for them,
All the time of their growth
Fretting for their decay:
Now she has them at last!
In the strength of their strength
Suspended--stopped and held.
What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit?
Earth! have they gone into you!
Somewhere they must have gone,
And flung on your hard back
Is their soul's sack
Emptied of God-ancestralled essences.
Who hurled them out? Who hurled?
None saw their spirits' shadow shake the grass,
Or stood aside for the half used life to pass
Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,
When the swift iron burning bee
Drained the wild honey of their youth.
What of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre,
Walk, our usual thoughts untouched,
Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed,
Immortal seeming ever?
Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us,
A fear may choke in our veins
And the startled blood may stop.
The air is loud with death,
The dark air spurts with fire,
The explosions ceaseless are.
Timelessly now, some minutes past,
Those dead strode time with vigorous life,
Till the shrapnel called `An end!'
But not to all. In bleeding pangs
Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home,
Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts.
Maniac Earth! howling and flying, your bowel
Seared by the jagged fire, the iron love,
The impetuous storm of savage love.
Dark Earth! dark Heavens! swinging in chemic smoke,
What dead are born when you kiss each soundless soul
With lightning and thunder from your mined heart,
Which man's self dug, and his blind fingers loosed?
A man's brains splattered on
A stretcher-bearer's face;
His shook shoulders slipped their load,
But when they bent to look again
The drowning soul was sunk too deep
For human tenderness.
They left this dead with the older dead,
Stretched at the cross roads.
Burnt black by strange decay
Their sinister faces lie,
The lid over each eye,
The grass and coloured clay
More motion have than they,
Joined to the great sunk silences.
Here is one not long dead;
His dark hearing caught our far wheels,
And the choked soul stretched weak hands
To reach the living word the far wheels said,
The blood-dazed intelligence beating for light,
Crying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels
Swift for the end to break
Or the wheels to break,
Cried as the tide of the world broke over his sight.
Will they come? Will they ever come?
Even as the mixed hoofs of the mules,
The quivering-bellied mules,
And the rushing wheels all mixed
With his tortured upturned sight.
So we crashed round the bend,
We heard his weak scream,
We heard his very last sound,
And our wheels grazed his dead face.
Poetry Analysis:
The poetry of Isaac Rosenberg, who served two years on the Western Front in Somme, France, makes explicit use of violent and grotesque imagery to convey the harsh reality of World War I. Rosenberg’s Dead Man’s Dump, a free verse composition, thoroughly communicates the senseless nature of war through its controversial portrayal of death and religion.
Central to Dead Man’s Dump is the loss of humanity in death as a consequence of war. This poem examines the idea of sacrificing one’s life for an ideal much larger than any single individual, only to join the multitude of other casualties in rot and decay. Rosenberg contrasts the human elements of these soldiers, “... friend and foeman,/ Man born of man, and born of woman”, with fetid imagery of corpses, “The wheels [...] pained them not, though their bones crunched,/ Their shut mouths made no moan”, to emphasize the inhumane nature of death in World War I. This theme is further demonstrated through the depiction of a stretcher-bearer- one who inadvertently discards a wounded patient into the field’s carnage. Rosenberg describes how, “...when they bent to look again / The drowning soul was sunk too deep / For human tenderness”, and thus, “They left this dead with the older dead”. The notion of losing contact with one’s humanity to become, more or less, a mere statistic of war is therefore reiterated throughout Dead Man’s Dump.
Rosenberg utilizes imagery throughout this poem to convey an accurate representation of World War I, and thus communicate his theme to the audience. Many of the images included in Dead Man’s Dump depict an environment of filth, decay, and bloodshed- in which the corpses of deceased soldiers litter the field of battle. The poem illustrates both through sound that, “The air is loud with death, / [...] The explosions ceaseless are”, and through sight that, “Burnt black by strange decay / Their sinister faces lie” to insight a general reaction of disgust among its audience. As a result, the reader is able to identify with the thoughts and emotions of those who served in the Great War, and consequently acknowledge the loss of humanity in the deaths of its casualties. It is important to recognize the necessity for imagery in World War I literature. Events with an emotional impact of this magnitude cannot simply be read, they must be experienced by the poem’s audience.
As free verse poetry, Dead Man’s Dump is not restricted to a traditional organization of syllables, lines, or verses. Rosenberg has instead structured the poem to distinguish between his ideas and highlight the dramatic effect of select passages. For instance, the verse, “They left this dead with older dead, / Stretched at the cross roads”, is separated from its preceding stanza in order to emphasize the significance of the stretcher-bearer’s predicament (examined in the analysis of the poem’s theme). Excluding the above passage, Dead Man’s Dump contains an average of 5-9 lines per verse in a total of thirteen stanzas. The majority of verses each examine a concept that is distinct though fundamentally related to the primary theme of the poem. For example, Rosenberg employs personification when discussing the earth throughout verses 3 and 8, while using verse 4 to explain the godless nature of war. The structure of Rosenberg’s poem begins with a general discussion of corpses spread throughout the field of battle, though evolves into specific, personal examples of deceased soldiers. This method of structuring serves to first introduce the broad devastation of the war, while eventually establishing a more intimate connection with the reader (thus helping the audience to further comprehend the theme of the poem).
The application of rhyme within Dead Man’s Dump is relatively sparse; there are, however, instances in which 2-3 lines of a verse follow a rhyming arrangement of “aab” or “aaa” (i.e. “The grass and coloured clay / More motion have than they, / Joined to the great sunk silences”). This sequence often encompasses a single idea that is intended to be emphasized by the poet. When read aloud, the poem follows a generally fluid transition between lines without the inclusion of a comma. Rosenberg implements this form of punctuation, however, to allow the reader a pause between specific lines of Dead Man’s Dump. The poem consequently follows a fluidic rhythm within specific verses in order to build dramatic tension, while the comma permits the audience to reflect upon the significance of the preceding statement.
Rosenberg makes avid use of specific language patterns to communicate the theme of Dead Man’s Dump. Various incarnations of filth, death, and decay are incorporated into the poem as reoccurring concepts, the more graphic of which reveal how, “A man’s brains splattered on / A stretcher-bearer’s face”. This style of language is included in order for the reader to associate with past experiences of disgust and despair- thus allowing one to further appreciate the loss of humanity in death as a result of World War I.
Religious symbolism is also employed as a poetic technique within Dead Man’s Dump. While illustrating the movement of artillery, Rosenberg mentions that, “The plunging limbers over the shattered track [...] Stuck out like many crowns of thorns”. This statement is a direct reference to the “crown of thorns” worn by Jesus Christ, who ultimately provided salvation for humankind (as depicted by Christian Bible). In deciding who among the fallen soldiers will acquire medical attention, the military transport is a representation of the salvation offered in Christianity. The author highlights the perversion of this concept, however, when demonstrating how soldiers often perish before receiving aid. He subsequently questions, “What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit? / Earth! have they gone into you! Somewhere they must have gone”. It is important to note that Rosenberg gives no acknowledgement of heaven within this passage, and therefore reveals that the act of war is godless by its fundamental nature.
Through portraying the loss of one’s humanity in death, Rosenberg communicates to the reader the senseless nature of war. His inclusion of disturbing imagery effectively immerses the audience into the reality of warfare, allowing one to acquire a complex understanding of the theme in Dead Man’s Dump. Furthermore, the discussion of religion within the poem serves to emphasize the godless quality of World War I. I personally found the conclusion of Dead Man’s Dump to demonstrate the most accurate representation of the poem’s theme. Within its final verses, Rosenberg introduces the reader to a soldier gravely wounded and desperately attempting to reach out for human contact. While a military transport hastens to locate and recover the source of this request, it approaches only to witness the soldier’s final pleas and subsequent death. The author comments upon the near instantaneous union of the soldier with the inhuman carnage of the war, “We heard his very last sound. / And our wheels grazed over his dead face”. Thus, Rosenberg communicates to the audience the horrific sacrifice of human life in war. Individuals are too often blinded by patriotism, greed, or a false perception of morality to recognize the true cost of declaring war on another nation. As a society, we cannot comprehend the reality of warfare (or choose not to), and accordingly, we altogether disassociate ourselves from the concept. I therefore submit that Rosenberg composed Dead Man’s Dump as a means of conveying this reality to the general public, and in effect, preventing similar events from occurring in the future.
A Private
Edward Thomas
This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doors
Many a frozen night, and merrily
Answered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores:
"At Mrs. Greenland's Hawthorn Bush," said he,
“I slept." None knew which bush. Above the town,
Beyond 'The Dover', a hundred spot the down
In Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleeps
More sound in France - that, too, he secret keeps.
This poem, entitled "A Private", was written by 2nd Lieutenant Edward Thomas, shortly after his enlistment in 1915. The poem describes one soldier's life and death in World War I. It is compelling in its ability to end before it even begins. It begins with the central character's death, continues by recalling how he would spend his days reminiscing in the trenches, and concludes with the assurance that the soldier's death was a godsend. The poem is also interesting in the way that it describes the events occurring in both France and England.
The central character of the poem is anonymous - he has no name and is only referred to as a private or a ‘ploughman’. This reveals that the poem is not in remembrance to a specific soldier or companion of Thomas's. Instead, it applies to all the unidentified soldiers that perished in World War I. The ploughman is a symbol Thomas uses to represent his affection for the countryside. His earlier works, written in prose, were highly concerned with the English countryside, (Longley, 2008). Thomas suggests that the soldier was once a simple man, possibly a farmer, who took pride in his land. This can be expanded to the assumption that his, (either Thomas’ or the ploughman’s) main reasoning for enlisting was to defend his beloved land.
In the second line, when Thomas says, "many a frozen night," he is referring to the chilling temperatures he (and the ploughman) had to endure when commissioned to the trenches. The word 'frozen' intensifies the imagery Thomas is illustrating. It is terribly unsettling. The descriptive word evokes our sense of touch. The reader can feel the frosted ground, the damp clay and the cool steel of the soldier’s rifle.
Directly following the chilling image of a ‘frozen night’ is a word completely contrasting in tone: ‘merrily’. It is used to describe the “answered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores,” which are more unidentifiable characters, which are introduced to represent the diversity of men in the trenches. This relieves the reader momentarily. They are likely to picture drunken or delirious soldiers, and those too awkward or anxious to speak.
Following this mixed imagery of the trenches is a likely conversation the private might have had with his counterparts. By incorporating this minimal dialogue, Thomas is evoking our sense of hearing. At first, silence is all that is heard. Then the reader may imagine the little conversation which occurs between soldiers. The lines, "At Mrs. Greenland's Hawthorn Bush," and “I slept," are the private’s attempt of small-talk. He is informing the men of a time when he remembers sleeping. However, their minds wander and no one asks to which specific 'Bush' he is speaking of. The men's disconcertment does not bother the private. Instead, he indulges in the thought of being able to sleep.
Thomas then takes us away from the French battlefield to view the massacre in England. When he mentions 'the down in Wiltshire' he is referring to the demise of the young English soldiers and the destruction of their country (which was being bombed at this time). At this point, the sense of sight is evoked. The reader may unwillingly imagine the action of the bombs dropping, the horror of contact, or the devastation that is the aftermath. The poem then takes a sharp turn from images of destruction and horror to serenity.
Thomas uses the calming, elongated vowel sounds in 'sleeps' and 'keeps' to emulate feelings of tranquility and peacefulness. These feelings describe the private's death on the French battlefield, where 'at last he sleeps'. The last line of the poem, “he secret keeps,” has dual meaning. One secret he keeps is his identity. The reader is still unaware of who this man is and what his true reasons were for enlisting. Another secret he keeps are the experiences he endured throughout his service in the war. His untimely death impedes the possibility of returning home to share in his experiences and offer his wisdom.
The poem incorporates two four-line stanzas in which the rhyming scheme is abab aabb. The first, third and sixth lines have eleven syllables, while the rest have ten. The punctuation in the poem limits the appearance of a rhyming scheme and syllable commonality. Its structure, therefore, as well as the integration of setting and foreshadowing, gets the reader involved in the poem as if it were a short story.
I was surprised to have found a rhyming scheme in this poem. At first glance, it seemed to me like a short story, rather than a poem, as I am more familiar with couplets and limericks. The language Thomas uses is very effecting in contrasting tones, (for example the ‘frozen trenches’ and ‘merrily drinkers’) as well as efficiently describing the setting.
I admire this poem. In ten lines it incorporates a multitude of imagery, tones, history, and experiences. Thomas captures the essence of living in the trenches without glorifying the horrific aspects of war. I like this poem because I feel that I am watching over a soldier who has become aware of the brutality that is warfare. He is focused and calm, and reflects on things he once took for granted (most evident is his inability to sleep). For some reason I cannot quite clarify, this man is worthy of my respect. At the end of the poem, I feel assured that this soldier completed what he set out to do, and therefore dies with a sense of fulfillment and dignity. This man is a hero.
To summarize, this poem depicts a likely scenario a soldier would experience during war. It accounts for the private's experiences in the trenches, his yearning to sleep, and his release from the 'war to end all wars'.
Works Cited
Longley, Edna. “The Guardian,” 28 June 2008. Retrieved [online] October 19, 2008 at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jun/28/saturdayreviewsfeatres.guardianreview22.
Strange Meeting
It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned.
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall.
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand pains that vision’s face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said the other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For of my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood has clogged their chariot wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie to deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now…”
Wilfred Owen’s “Strange Meeting” was written between 1919 and 1920. It is a dramatic monologue by a soldier, who speaks of his encounters with another soldier. Perhaps the man is an enemy, or he could be a comrade. But that is not the point that Wilfred Owen tries to show. It is that in war, all men are the same, regardless of what side they are on.
The theme in the poem is the equality of men in war. Owen’s method of showing this is through the conversation the subject is having. When the stranger says “Whatever hope is yours, / Was my life also” it shows that both soldiers have no hope in this war. The other soldier is obviously dying, so are the persona’s hopes. There is also vagueness in the other character where the reader cannot tell if he is a friend of an enemy. The line “I am the enemy you killed, my friend” shows that there is no difference between the opposing sides. If the persona were talking to an ally, then it means that in war, the person one kills is not an enemy, but another human being.
There is also quietness in the poem, which serves as an anti-thesis to the war. This silence supports the theme because if it were two enemies talking, then all the bloodshed from World War One was not necessary. The imagery of the stranger’s face that was grained with “a thousand pains” proves that war has taken a toll on both sides.
There is also the motif of blood through the poem. It does not say to whom the blood belongs to; that whatever blood is spilled is just another dead or wounded soldier. The fact that the scene takes place underground away from battle where “no blood reached from the upper ground” symbolizes their equality – that away from the circumstances of the war they are just two people.
The lengths of lines are about the same and it is very organize. It seems as if the poet ends a line in the middle of a sentence just to start a new line. This organized structure is quite militaristic, where one must keep to a certain form no matter how inconvenient it is. It also supports the theme of the poem: all lines are equal in length like the men from both sides are equal to each other. The method of ending a line in the middle of a sentence also makes it seem longer. It shows the reader Owen’s view on the war: it is endless.
Wilfred Owen’s form and structure creates a rhythm. There is no rhyme in the poem, but he pair’s words that are alike. Some examples are groined and grained, bestirred and stared, laughed and left and hall and hell. This sort of rhyming scheme is used throughout the whole poem, except in the end where the line is shorter than the rest and does not seem to fit with the other lines before it. It causes an abrupt end to the poem, which parallels the uncertainty of the war. The ‘rhyming words’ further supports the message Owen tries to convey. The words are not enough alike to create a stereotypical couplet poem, but they are similar enough to create a certain harmony.
One literary device that is prevalent in the poem is an oxymoron. To define it, an oxymoron is “putting together two words that seem to contradict one another.” It is just like putting two enemies in a tunnel to have a conversation about life with one another. In the second line, Owen calls the tunnel a “profound dull tunnel.” Perhaps on the surface it is indeed a boring tunnel, but it is in this tunnel where the soldier learns that the man he has killed is just like him. There is also the underlying message that the murders are impersonal and that the men could be friends under different circumstances because the other says, “I am the enemy you killed, my friend.”
To read the poem aloud, one will discover that the words produce soft sounds that are heard with s’s, f’s and th’s. This form of alliteration creates a peaceful sound, which is odd because the poem is about war and death. The peaceful effect will offset a reader because the scene consists of two people who are opposed to one another.
Any person can write a poem about the war and use every literary device imaginable to show how horrific it was. But Wilfred Owen, who has fought in the war himself, steers clear from that in “Strange Meeting.” Instead of glorifying the allies and talking down the enemy, he portrays them as human beings. He takes the message “War is Evil” a step further and transforms it to, “Why should we kill someone who is just like us?” the previously mentioned methods he uses effectively portrays this message, but the serenity of the poem was most effective of all.
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