Commentary on: "In Flander's Fields".

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Jessica Doolittle

I.B. Honors English

10/7/03 - 1st Hour

Commentary on: “In Flander’s Fields”

        “In Flander’s Fields,” written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae during World War I, is to this day, one of the most monumental war poems ever composed.  Created as a legacy of the horrifying battle in the Ypres salient in 1915; this very vivid poem gives its reader the sense of death, while its beautiful images and powerful messages make it seemingly unforgettable.  Perhaps one reason this piece of writing has been so successful is because it was made to describe a personal experience of McCrae’s.

        It seems that McCrae felt very strongly about war, especially about the battle in the Ypres salient:

“I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days…Seventeen days of Hades!  At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done.” (John McCrae)  

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The death of a former student, Alexis Helmer, is what made the battle in the Ypres salient especially personal for Lt. McCrae.  Out of grief, McCrae arranged the funeral and after wrote the poem, which is said to be exact:

“The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both.  He used the word ‘blow’ in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind.  It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published.  It seemed to me just an exact description of ...

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