Alex Tischer's
British Literary Crusade
A blog delving into British texts from the last 200 years
In this week’s blog, I am diving into three poems, all written by poets during World War 1. These voices from the war tackle what it means to be a soldier in three very distinct ways, and of course, the poems aren’t the most optimistic literature you’ve ever read. The first poem is “Glory of Women” by Siegfried Sassoon, then “Break of Day in the Trenches” by Isaac Rosenberg and finally “Strange Meeting” by Wilfred Owen. Written in the very early 20th century, women were just getting voting rights, gender equality was at the forefront of societal issues, and men were cajoled into serving in a war that ended with 40 million lives lost.
Each of these poems revolve around one driving factor, and that is blame. These men are sitting in trenches, hungry, thirsty, rotting, and wondering why on earth they decided to join the war. Naturally, they find people or objects to blame for their misery. It is very evident who is blamed in “Glory of Women”, as you might be able to tell from the title’s inherent irony. Sassoon berates women for their hypocrisy, only lauding soldiers with memorable stories and profiting from employment while the men are off at war. “You make us shells”, as the women literally produce bullet shells for the war, but also make shells out of the men they are sending the bullets to, only liking them for the accolades on their chest and disregarding the shell of a human they become. In “Break of Day in the Trenches”, Rosenberg blames the rat that happens to jump into his hand, envying its ability to run from one enemy’s base to another unscathed. Rosenberg is stuck to die in his trench while a measly rat can go wherever it pleases. In “Strange Meeting”, the undead soldier that Owen finds in hell blames war itself for his death, in that countries go to war blind and kill countless men for no reason. Those that aren’t killed wish they were because of PTSD and other mental ailments that will attack them the rest of their lives, and Owen expresses that in the line “Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were”. While dark, these poems express the helplessness and utter misery that one experiences on the battlefield. Each poet approaches that dread in varying levels of figurative and literal meaning, with Sassoon’s literal and accusatory tone , Rosenberg’s understated and morally-ambiguous style, and Owen’s drawn-out and righteous tendencies. War was able to siphon their fear into powerful poetry. Cool links to check out - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/wilfred-owen-journey-to-the-trenches-423593.html https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/isaac-rosenberg-in-the-trenches
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |