What different views of war do you find in the war poets you have studied.
What different views of war do you find in the war poets you have
studied.
This coursework is about war poetry.
I will explain the different view of war I have, from the poems written by 4 different poets.
The poems I will be writing about are "INTO BATTLE, WHO'S FOR THE GAME, PEACE AND SPRING OFFENSIVE AND FUTILITY".
All these poems are based on the 1st World War.
"Into Battle by Julian Grenfell. This poem was written at the start of the war, hence the title Into Battle.
It starts off with the out look of nature.
The naked earth is warm with spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun's gaze glorying
And quivers in the sunny breeze
These quotes show that nature is positive and is blossoming.
The quoting of these lines,
And life is colour and warmth and light
And striving evermore for these.
The author very powerfully uses these lines.
It is stating that the soldiers are taking the light for their life, their grabbing it, they are going to take each day as it comes hoping to be alive.
The poems strengths are the description of nature.
Julian Grenfell emphasises on this by describing nature in depth.
Speed with the light-foot winds to run,
And with the trees to newer birth,
The woodland trees that stand together,
They stand to him each one a friend,
They gently speak in the windly weather,
They guide to valley and ridge's sight.
The author explains them, like they are humans on earth.
The poem is based as a springboard of confidence for the soldiers.
That springboard is the coming of spring. It seems that spring is giving the soldiers hope.
The soldiers enter the war under God's guidance.
They believe that it is up to God what may come upon them , this can be identified through the lines of the author,
The thundering line of battle stands,
And in the air death moans and sings:
But day shall cloap him with strong hands,
And night shall fold him in soft wings.
The writer tries to calm the soldiers fear before attack by saying that if this is their last chance to sing, they should sing it well.
The blackbirds calling "brothers"
In this verse gives a sense of family feeling.
Even though the soldiers are at the battle ground, they still have family back home, which encourages them.
The horses show ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
The thundering line of battle stands,
And in the air death moans and sings:
But day shall cloap him with strong hands,
And night shall fold him in soft wings.
The writer tries to calm the soldiers fear before attack by saying that if this is their last chance to sing, they should sing it well.
The blackbirds calling "brothers"
In this verse gives a sense of family feeling.
Even though the soldiers are at the battle ground, they still have family back home, which encourages them.
The horses show him nobler powers
O patient eyes courageous hearts
The soldiers are also supported hours before the attack with patience and courage by their working partners, the horses.
Julian Grenfell wrote this poem in 1915.
I believe this is a interesting, touching poem.
It is extremely eye catching for the reader as it tells us the most unbelievable, imaginative lines a poet could think of.
Every line read is puzzling but understandable, and creates a picture in the mind of the reader.
Jessie Pope wrote "who's for the game".
Jessie Pope refers to the war as being a game, as she quotes
Who's for the game, the biggest that's played,
The red crashing game of a fight?
Who'll grip and tackle the job unafraid?
And who thinks he'd rather sit tight?
She questions the people out their asking them, are they ready to give their services to the country.
Who wants a turn to himself in the show?
The line that follows is,
And who wants a seat in the stand?
Those two lines talks much of there being two types of people,
The showmen and the spectators.
The most confusing line in the poem is,
Yet eagerly shoulders a gun?
This line is describing a great sense of pride of an injured soldier.
Jessie Pope visualises war as beautiful and full of pleasant surprises, but this is what she will believe, unless she has actually experienced the war.
She outlines this by saying;
Than lie low and be out of the fun?
She ends the poem by laying a demand for the people of England telling them,
Your country is up to her neck in a fight,
And she's looking and calling for you.
She's telling them to, be ready for a fight, because the country needs you.
Rupert Brooke wrote "peace" in 1914.
Rupert Brooke strongly believes peace is boring.
He feels more peaceful going into battle than staying at home.
He shows that he is not afraid, of death.
The poet believes war is the doing of God, it is his idea of a great event. He quotes
Now, God be thanked who has matched us with his hour,
In the second verse of the poem he imagines being killed in battle.
Oh! We, who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to solve the laughing heart's long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.
Rupert Brooke is stating that, the one thing that can be broken is his body, and that peace of the Death is the minds enemy.
Owen's poem the Spring Offensive explores the unnatural offensive of war against spring or nature. Opening with
'Halted against the shade of a last hill'
Owen suggests both the calmness of the 'shade' and the deadly implication of 'last'. The horror of war is not only the 'hot blast and fury of Hells upsurge' of stanza 6 but also 'the sun, like a friend with whom their love is done' of stanza 4.
Owen's imagery of nature is particually imminent in 'Spring Offensive'.
'long grass swirled.......murmurous with wasp and midge'
shows his attention to detail and portrays the uneasy patience of the soldiers as they 'face the stark blank sky beyond the ridge' awaiting their fate. Owen creates a quiet, soft atmosphere in his use of nature but with daunting implications as shown in the rhyming couplet of stanza 3;
'And the far valley behind, where the buttercup
Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up'
And the line
'But clutched to them like sorrowing hands'
implies in a peaceful tone that nature is trying to stop the soldiers from going to the battlefield. The poem is a progressive story in which nature pleads with the soldiers then slowely becomes their enemy.
Owen, when presenting his theme that war is unnatural, does as if it were a progressive story. The beginning, middle and finally after the battle where the men crawl 'slowly back' He also delves into the shame experienced by the soldiers,
'Why speak not they of comrades that went under?' As it is said these men were 'wartime heros yet a peacetime mess'
'Futility' best describes that Owens poetry offers so much more to the reader than the insight into the horrors of war. The death of the soldier in this poem is just a starting point for Owens universal questioning of the pointlessness of war and humanity in general. Owen in this condensed poem does not use visual images of horror as he is known for. He conjures feelings within the reader that often are more horrific.
This poem deals with the death of the speakers friend ironically from the cold despite the terrible destruction of war.
The 'kind old sun'
is personified in the first stanza. The speaker has placed full faith in the sun to 'rouse him now' yet as the poem develops he realises that not only has mankind turned against himself but also nature has rejected him.
'Always it woke him, even in France'
shows his confidence yet the next line
'until this morning and this snow'
suggests that the speaker already knows this daunting consequence of war yet disreguards his inhabition until the second stanza. The 'kind old sun' is now the 'fatuous sunbeams' With this he has in turn rejected nature.
There is a contrast between the two stanza's where the speakers attitude develops from hope to despair and helplessness. The personification of the sun allows the reader to share in the hope that the sun
'might rouse him now'.
The reader becomes not involved in the horror of war but is caught up in the struggle between nature and humanity.
It is in this last stanza that the speaker realises that nothing will save his comrade from death and questions
'Was it for this the clay grew tall?'
Concluding my coursework I think war changed England.
This is because as these poems were written, they were the views most people had to war.
These views were their own views but I am sure the most of the country shared the same different views as the authors I have written about.
People took an outlook to war as being a bad thing that would turn out good if there was a strong participation in it and if victory was claimed.
I think These poets , Wilfred Owen, Julian Grenfell, Rupert Brooke and Jessie pope share the views of the people of England during the 1st world war.
George Busumbru GM1
AMDG