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Kristen Cassels 7-23-2010 The Impact of the First World War on British Poetry There is one undeniable dilemma that man has faced throughout history, and that is war. Of all wars, why is the Great War of special concern to those interested in poetry? The answer to this question is easily the overall quality of the literature the war produced. Great War poems are readable. The young men who went to war in 1914 placed a particular value on substance, meaning, and were unashamed to explore themes of nobility, and tragedy. The war morphed the European society socially, politically, economically, and intellectually. A good deal of the Great War‟s horror had related to its novelty.(Bruce Martin 13) The echoes of a continent shattering were heard throughout the world as Europe collapsed into total war. These echoes were the sound of change as Europe was transformed and life would never be the same. The War Poets, Rupert Brooke, John McCrae, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen shared the same experiences, but all focused on different aspects of the war and used different means of expression. By examining a poetical kinship we are able to see a shellshock attitude of war that only a poet‟s firsthand experience can describe. Although the First World War produced great works in every form of media, the western world seemed to embrace war poetry more than any other art form of the time. The nature of war was such that not even literature could remain insensitive to the deep emotional distresses that were affecting so many worldwide (Daniel Hipp 47). A complex series of treaties, tensions, and alliances involving the major and minor European states led to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, on June 28, 1914 (Martin
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Gilbert 104). In response, the armies of Europe were mobilized and by summer‟s end, the world was at war. During the four years and three months that Britain was involved in the war, more than a million British troops were killed in action. In Great Britain and Europe, an entire generation of young men were exhausted. The initial patriotic fervor that compelled many young men to enlist in the summer of 1914 had in most cases, by 1916, collapsed into cynicism and anger, as reflected in a saying that circulated among the British Troops, “We went to war with Rupert Brooke, came home with Siegfried Sassoon” (Rolf Lessenich). The gruesome reality brought to light by those taking part in the armed war led many people to realize the fact that dying in a war was no longer a dulce et decorum idea. The poets we will discuss participated in what came to be known as the Great War; many of them did not even survive to see its end. Some, like Rupert Brooke and John McCrae, believed their services were part of a noble and just cause. Others though, like Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, entered the military through a sense of duty. Robert Brooke‟s war sonnets were written in the first flush of patriotism and enthusiasm as a generation unused to war rushed to defend king and country. Perhaps more than any other of the war poets, Brooke came to represent the magnitude of England‟s sacrifice for what was popularly believed a just cause. Grief, death, devastation: with the strong exception of Rupert Brooke, these were the themes reflected in most war poetry during World War I. Brooke laced his poetry with sentimentality and nationalism, which was a far cry from the themes of other works during the time. Rupert Brooke was a talented young poet throughout World War I whose poetry was both loved and criticized. It was first published in Brooke‟s book of sonnets, 1914 aptly named for the year they were authored. Brooke‟s “The Soldier,” is today seen as overly sentimental and
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as romanticizing the horrors of the war through strong figurative language and symbols, yet it is still enough to guarantee his lasting place in modern poetry (Hipp 112). The voice in “The Soldier” talks about his untimely death in a fiercely patriotic manner, undaunted by his likely demise. When referring to the foreign field in which he will be buried, he describes it with “…there‟s some corner of a foreign field that is forever England./There shall be in that rich earth a richer dust concealed” (Brooke qtd in Dettmar Pg 1098). In these lines Brooke is saying that the dust, the earth, in which he is buried, will be richer because an English soldier lies in it; because a piece of England lies beneath the earth. Through this statement, Brooke is associating the soldier in the poem with England, making him not just English, but England. Patriotism shines through again in the next lines, “A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, / Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, / A body of England‟s, breathing English air…” (Brooke qtd in Dettmar Pg 1098). “A body of England‟s” supports Brooke‟s embodiment of soldiers as not only English, but England. Rupert Brooke‟s “The Soldier” reflected the national mood of England at the beginning of World War 1, a comparison which has made it both famous and infamous. Some of the bloodiest battles of World War I took place in the areas of northern France and southwest Belgium known as Flanders and Picardy (Gilbert 113). In April 1915, John McCrae was in the trenches near Belgium, in the area traditionally called Flanders. Some of the heaviest fighting of the First World War took place there during what was known as the Second Battle of Ypres (Gilbert 113). The scenes of the spring battles in the Ypres moved John McCrae, to write "In Flanders Fields”. The poem was later published in Punch Magazine. The poem, “In Flanders Fields” remains one of the most important and memorable pieces of war poetry ever written. John
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McCrae came from a respectable family and became a soldier, doctor, author and teacher. Though he wrote textbooks on medicine and numerous poems he will be forever remembered as being the voice of the many who had fallen during World War I. “In Flanders Field,” stirred the hearts of soldiers and their families everywhere. In a simple language and with flowing verse it vividly evoked the situation and emotions of the front line troops. In Flanders Fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below (McCrae lines 1-5). The imagery of the poppies in the field shows the beauty that can exist in war. Echoing the contrast between the exuberance of nature and the solemnity of death, which the soldiers on the lush fields in Ypres must have felt very strongly. John McCrae‟s poem later inspired the poppy to become the symbol of remembrance and sacrifice (Brian Busby 4). Despite the fact that poppies did not become a remembrance symbol until long after the war was over, various poets included them in their poetry. As the “war poet” soon realized what the war was really about, poets abandoned the romantic vocabulary they had previously used and felt the need for newer means of expression. New rhythms and fresh styles that could better mirror the harsh reality of war began to surface. One of the leaders in this new style was Siegfried Sassoon.
The war poems of Siegfried
Sassoon are biting satires condemning the war. Describing such poems as “The One-Legged Man” as “satirical drawings,”(Patrick Campbell 26), Sassoon acknowledged that he intended to
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“disturb complacency” (Campbell 26) with his art. Sassoon himself served in the war‟s early years. As the war continued, Sassoon concluded that it was being needlessly prolonged. In the summer of 1917, he submitted his now famous protest against the war to his commanding officer, which was reprinted into his press. In it Sassoon declared that he had entered the war believing it was one of “defence and liberation” (Campbell 29). He then stated that he now saw the war as a source of “great aggression and conquest” (Campbell 29). He could “no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe evil and unjust.”(Campbell 30) Rather than having to face court martial for his strong words, Sassoon opted to be tried by a medical board and was judged as having severe shell shock. (Siegfried Sassoon 27). After the medical boards ruling, Sassoon was sent to Craiglockhart military hospital where he would meet Wilfred Owen. While Sassoon was there he composed some of his finest war poems. Sassoon published his first volume of war poetry, The Old Huntsman, in May 1917, and a companion volume, Counter-Attack, in July 1918. Perhaps the greatest irony of Sassoon‟s war time poetry was its popular success. As British literary scholar Bernard Bergonzi observes, “Sassoon‟s anti-war outcry had been transformed...into a subtler form of pro-war propaganda” (Lessenich). Some of the very people he condemned, politicians and civilians alike, celebrated his verses. Through poems with blazing guns, spurting blood, and screaming agony, Wilfred Owen justly deserves the label, applied by critics, of war poet. Some critics, like W.B. Yeats who said, “I consider [Wilfred Owen] unworthy of the poets corner of a country news paper,” (Harold Bloom 138) satisfy themselves with this label and argue that Owen lacked the artistic merit to be given much attention. Owen portrayed the idea of war as a cause of physical and spiritual
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mutilation and used understatement to bring a certain deal of harshness into his poetry. The theme of „Dulce et Decorum est’ is that there is neither nobility in war, nor honor in fighting for your country. Instead there is tragedy, futility and waste of human life. Wilfred Owen fought in some of the major battles of World War I and the reality and horror of war shocked him. In the face of the desperate suffering he saw around him, it was no longer possible to pretend warfare was adventurous and heroic. Instead Owen recorded in his poetry how shocking modern warfare was and he sought to describe accurately what the conditions were like for soldiers at the front. Bent-double, like old beggers under sacks, / Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge (Owen qtd in Dettmar Pg 1102). Owen wanted people who were not in the trenches – the people at home in England – to see the reality and misery of war. He also wanted them to stop telling future generations the “old lie” Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (“It is sweet and fitting to die for one‟s country.”). In addition, Owen was exposed to the cloyingly sentimental writing and attitude of non-combatants who glorified war, an attitude to which Wilfred reacted with fury. Further fuelled by nightmares of his wartime experiences, Owen wrote classics like 'Anthem for Doomed Youth', rich and multi-layered works characterized by a brutal honesty and deep compassion for the soldiers/victims, many of which were direct ripostes to other authors. World War I, also known as the The Great War, marked a watershed perception that most people had of war. European countries put all of their human and material resources into the war which resulted in enormous social change. The reality of life in Europe during the war was so far removed from the European pre-war lifestyle that it in the end influenced all aspects of life. This is the reasoning behind so many English poets deciding to take on the daunting role of soldiers. By doing so they planned on endowing their poetry with a first person account of the
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armed conflict. This immortalized the words of great poets like Rupert Brooke, John McCrae, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen. Soon tales of hideous trench warfare hardened and embittered the minds of many. England‟s initial heroic enthusiasm little by little turned into pessimism, a feeling reflected in the poems written by those soldier poets who suddenly became aware of the human tragedy underlying the seemingly sweet and heroic experience of war.
Works Cited
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Bloom, Harold. "A Vision: The Dead and History." William Butler Yeats. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. 138. Print. Busby, Brian. In Flanders Field: And Other Poems of the First World War. New Jersey: Book Sales, 2005. 3-14. Print. Campbell, Patrick. "The Progress of the Poet." Siegfried Sassoon: A Study of the War Poetry. North Carolina: Mcfarland & Company, 1999. 26-30. Print. Dettmar, Kevin, and Jennifer Wicke. "The Great War: Confronting the Modern." The Longman Anthology British Literature. Second ed. Vol. B. New York: Pearson Education, 2004. 1080-107. Print. Gilbert, Martin. "World War,1914-1918 Great Britain." The First World War: a Complete History. New York: H. Holt and, 2004. 44-107. Print. Hipp, Daniel W. "World War,1914-1918 Great Britain." The Poetry of Shell Shock: Wartime Trauma and Healing in Wilfred Owen, Ivor Gurney and Siegfried Sassoon. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &, 2005. 44-107. Print. Lessenich, Rolf P. "WAR POETRY: WHERE DEATH BECOMES ABSURD AND LIFE ABSURDER." GOEDOC - Der Dokumentenserver Der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (SUB Göttingen) - Documentserver of the Georg-August University of Goettingen (SUB Goettingen). University of Bonn, 27 Jan. 2009. Web. 11 July 2010. Martin, Bruce K. "Poetry in Wartime." British Poetry Since 1939. Boston: Twayne, 1985. 13. Print.
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Sassoon, Siegfried. "The Progress of the Poet." Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. London: Faber & Faber, 1973. 26-30. Print.
