An Introduction

War has given writers much material to use in books, short stories, descriptive essays, poems etc. Sometimes these merely narrate incidents and bring them up to story form. For instance Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece, War and Peace, tells the story of five families during the Napoleonic Wars, “The Great Escape” by Paul Brickhill which was also made into the movie, and Ernest’s Hemmingway’s “A Farewell to Arms”, which examines how World War 1 impacted the lives of several characters---including an ambulance driver. The film, based on the novel, earned Academy Awards for cinematography and sound recording,

                                     Apart from the poems “Six Young Men” by Ted Hughes and  “War Photographer” by Carol Anne Duffy, “Vergissmeinicht” by Keith Douglas and “Bombing Casualties in Spain” by Herbert Read also show the futility of war, without minimizing the horrors it creates. Some of these books go into the economics of war. All these books imply that given a similar set of circumstances as well as predictably of human nature, war is inevitable. They also bring about the aftermath of war and how it damages the socio-political nature of a nature. Most of these war novels have a good dose of love and romance and many have been made into outstanding films.

The Poets of the First World War

The First World War brought to public notice many poets, particularly among the young men in the armed forces, while it provided a new source of inspiration for writers of established reputation. Not a few of the younger poets were killed or died in the struggle, and it is impossible to estimate the loss sustained by English poetry in their deaths.

        There can be no clearer reflection of the changing national attitude towards the conflict as the weary years brought disillusionment than that found than that found in the poetry of these men. Broadly two phases may be distinguished. The first was one of patriotic fervor, almost of rejoicing in the opportunity of self-sacrifice in the cause of human freedom, and a revival of the romantic conception of the knight-at-arms. Many writers, indeed, lived and served throughout the war and preserved unblemished this fervor of the early years. But, as the carnage grew more appalling and the end seemed as distant as ever, other poets arose with declared intention of shattering this illusion of the splendor of war by a frankly realistic picture of the suffering, brutality, squalor, and futility of the struggle. The work of this last group, though at first greeted with derision or angry protest, has probably withstood the passage of time better than that of the earlier. Perhaps something of its realism and its depth of understanding has found an echo in the experience of disillusioned post-War generations.  

The Poets of the Second World War

The period of the 1939-45 War produced much poetry, and, probably for the first time in twentieth century, poetry sold well and to a wide public. Some of it was war poetry in the most obvious sense, dealing with events and experiences springing directly from the military struggle. On the other hand, among the older poets of the Georgian tradition were writes like Walter de la Mare who continued to write poetry that was little affected by the upheaval. But the greatest poetry of the period undoubtedly felt the impact of the War, though it is not obviously concerned with its events or the emotions caused directly by them. Such is Four Quartets, the work of a writer able to absorb into the greater whole of his life’s experience the emotions and experiences of the War. For the younger and lesser poets the War was too near, too all-important to permit them to view it in that wider perspective which alone creates the greatest art. The First World War had found in Wilfred Owen a young poet of sufficient detachment, yet depth, to take his wider view. There was no one of his stature among the war poets of the second great conflict.

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        Among the themes, which most frequently recur in the work of the war poets are the boredom and frustrations of service life, the waste that is war, appreciation of the friendship found in the services, a deep enjoyment of nature and of the landscapes of home, and, above all, the courageous facing-up to the hardships of the struggle and the possibility of ultimate death. The predominating tone is probably one of sadness, and there is less of the spirit of knight-errantry than is to be found in the poetry of 1914-16.

        Generally it may be said that the War sees ...

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