The situational irony showed in the poem leads to the idea of the Lost Generation by distorting the life cycle. The life cycle means that a person begins life, grows up, gets old and eventually dies. The poet twists this cycle by saying, “But [the people of England] are young.”(Cole l.7) By calling the people of England young, Cole shows how the members of the Lost Generation unintentionally disrupt the life cycle because they choose to live in the past. They rely on their memories and other good times to get them through the day. The final two lines stress the irony “we should be dead / But there are years and years in which we shall still be young.”(Cole l.10-11) In other words Cole knows that the members of the Lost Generation live pointless lives, but at the same time she says that those people seem somewhat trapped in their youth. In The Sun Also Rises, Lady Brett Ashley, who is a member of the Lost Generation, also lives in the past. She dates all these young men and never settles down and gets married. Plus she does not have a job. She is thirty-four years old and she spends all her time drinking and going out just like a teenager. The Lost Generation experienced life just like Brett. The irony of the poem leads to this idea of the Lost Generation.
The language stresses Cole’s deduction of the future of the people in Europe. In the first stanza, Cole uses words that give off a depressing vibe to the poem. Word such as, “old”, “die”, “slow”, “wound”, “pain”, and “alone” show the sad lives that these people lived.(Cole l. 1-5) Their friends have died in the war and they feel alone. Cole goes on and says that, “their love is running slow” meaning that since they lost their friends, they feel like they do not have people to love.(Cole l.3) It feels so bad that some people even blamed God for what happened during the war. For instance, Jake Barnes lost his ability to be sexually active in the war. He indirectly blamed God for his injury since he could not consummate his love for Lady Brett Ashley. The poem goes on and talks about how the Lost Generation will not be able to, “spring from the wound with so sharp a pain”. (Cole l.4) Cole feels that the Lost Generation will never be able to recover from the affects of World War I.
Cole uses a repetitive diction so that the first and second stanza can be almost linked together in order to show the anticipation for the Lost Generation. For instance, the first stanza includes the phrase, “their friends die” while the first line of the second stanza states, “and our friends are dead” (Cole l.1, 7). In the first stanza Cole refers to the Lost Generation as another group of people, whereas in the second stanza, she includes herself within the Lost Generation. By including herself, she realizes that she is a part of Lost Generation and that she feels the same thing everyone else currently feels. Next, Cole talks about their love running slow while in the second stanza the “love is torn in two.” (Cole l.8) The point that Cole makes in the second stanza stress on how the people affected by the war choose their loyalty, they either have to stand by God, King and Country or they focus on being against the war if they feel that it is wrong. The last aspect that link the two stanzas together are the memories that the members of the Lost Generation live on. In the first stanza, memories are put in a positive light. Cole states that the members of the Lost Generation “are happy with many memories” whereas in the second stanza “memories are only hopes that came to nothing.”(Cole l.5, 9) In the first stanza, Cole describes that memories basically fuel the lives of all these people so that they have something to live off of. While the second stanza criticizes the fact that these people are living off the memories instead of living real, purposeful lives. The use of repetition in the poem helps stress the coming of the Lost Generation as well as how bad it will be.
The poem ''Praematuri'' by Margaret Postgate Cole accurately predicts the rise of the Lost Generation as seen in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Cole could tell that the post World War I era would be tough for the European citizens. Through the title, situational irony, language and repetitive diction, Cole is able to predict the future. Since the title translates to ''premature death'', it is perfectly fitting because the lives of Lost Generation were almost pointless since they lost interest in living life to the fullest. The situational irony that comes up throughout the poem captures how the Lost Generation lived in the past versus the present. The words chosen also anticipated the rise of the Lost Generation because they expressed the overall depression that came about during the post World War I era. Lastly, the repetitive diction between the first and second stanzas contrasts the pros and cons of the lifestyle of the Lost Generation. The poem ''Praematuri'' does anticipate the change in lifestyle during the post World War I, known as the Lost Generation.
Works Cited
Cole, Margaret Postgate. ''Praematuri.'' Out in the Dark: Poetry of the First World War in Context and with Basic Notes. Ed. David Robinson. Burgess Hill, West Sussex: Saxon, 1998. 113.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. 1926. New York: Simon & Schuster-
Scribner, 2003.
