The Poems of World War One Can Be Broadly Divided into Three Waves of Sentiment: Recruitment, Experience and Futility - Using at least one poem from each category, show how the attitudes to war changed and are reflected in the work of the war poets.

Authors Avatar

           

The Poems of World War One Can Be

Broadly Divided into Three Waves of Sentiment:

Recruitment, Experience and Futility.

Using at least one poem from each category, show how the attitudes to war changed and are reflected in the work of the war poets.

           I find poetry from the First World War particularly interesting because for many

men, war was something far off, which they knew nothing about. Whilst warfare has

inspired art in every form; the First World War has undoubtedly been the source of a

greater collection of work than any other event of similar magnitude. As I have said, this

was probably due to the fact that Britain had not been included in warfare for a while.

         

             Possibly one of the most interesting things about First World War poetry is the

definite shift in attitude towards war that may be observed. Most of the poetry falls under

three headings (recruitment, experience and futility.) In the course of this essay I intend to

compare mood, intentions and attitudes expressed in these three different types of poetry.

       

            Compared to the morbid attitude of some futility poems, recruitment poetry can

seem very vain. Using euphemism and often flippant remarks to produce a false illusion

of pride and glory. An example of this euphemism is in "Who's for the game?" by Jessie

Pope. Even the title is a metaphor suggesting that war is fun and not dangerous, this

metaphor extends throughout the poem. The word "Game" may produce a happy image

of families playing games in many young men's minds. She makes it sound as if she

knows all about war, when the truth is she has had no experience of what war is actually

like. But you must consider that these poems were written for a purpose, to persuade men

to go to war.

         

           The image that recruitment poets tried to convey was that war was fun. Poets like

Harold Begbie and Matilda Betham-Edwards used the idea of pride to create feelings of

guilt and to make men feel that if they did not go to war they would be cowards. Most

recruitment poems such as "Who's for the game?" have a semantic field of patriotism,

bravery and honor using words like "tackle," "unafraid" and "eagerly" however "The two

Mothers" by Matilda Betham-Edwards uses words like "weeping," "grief" and "mourn"

to create a feeling of shame. It made men want to go to war so that their families would

not be ashamed of them. Most recruitment poems have a basic rhyming scheme, which is

simple but affective.

         

              However, there were perhaps a few poets with more vision, men who had an

idea of what war would actually involve and entail. "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae

is a very famous poem. Possibly one of the poems most associate with world war one

literature. It was ironic that poppies grew in Flanders fields because they are meant to be

fragile plants. They may symbolize hope amongst the mass of dead. The "torch" that John

McCrae mentions is possibly referring to the torch of hope, but it also reminds me of the

torch that relay runners pass on. He may be saying take the torch and finish the race. The

Join now!

line "If ye break faith with us who die" I found particularly interesting because "ye" is an

old fashioned way of saying you, though the rest of the poem is not written in this style.

Did the poet intend to emphasize the personal affect in this line?  It refers to the

reader as an individual rather than a whole audience. The line "We shall not sleep…"

suggests that more men must go to let the soldiers sleep. This might make the reader feel

responsible.

        ...

This is a preview of the whole essay