How important is landscape in some of the literature you have studied of World War one.
How important is landscape in some of the literature you have studied of World War one.
Many of the poet’s during World War one relied upon landscape to create the atmosphere needed to give some idea to the people at home what the surroundings of war and the repercussions of war really were like. The horrific nature of war could not be seen on television as it could be today, it could be reported in newspapers quite adequately, yet many found that the best way to really get a feel for war, was to hear from some that had experienced it first hand, as many poets of the day had done.
Wilfred Owen was a leading poet during the Great War. Poems such as ‘Exposure’, ‘Strange Meeting’, and ‘Mental Cases’ contain copious amounts of vivid language all upon the torture of the men at war, and the pain and suffering that they encountered while fighting. Although Wilfred Owen was a fantastic poet, his use of landscape within his poems was limited. Although, Wilfred Owen’s use of the weather to create in eerie feeling within his poems was present, ‘Our brains ache, in the merciless iced East winds that/ knive us…’ ‘We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag/stormy.’ ‘Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?’ ‘Spring Offensive’, another poem by Wilfred Owen, contains many images of landscape and weather, however. ‘Hour after hour they ponder the warm field -/And the Valley behind, where the buttercups/… Where even the little brambles would not yield.’this poetic landscape is used to create a pause almost, within a poem. It creates a ‘time out’ from all the action taking place.