THEME 1: The War to End All Wars

"And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues" Owen

The poetry of the First World War shows the divide between poets. A.E.Housman and Rupert Brooke (see also Brooke biodata) at its start urge young men to give themselves for King and country "pro patria" and then what emerges later is the evidence of the catastrophe it was: the poems of Wilfred Owen attest to this:

Dulce at Decorum Est

Summary: It is evil to perpetrate the lie that it is noble to die for one's country; the Great War has brought untold suffering to so many young servicemen. Discussion of it.

Strange Meeting

Summary: In the underground after death, a soldier meets the enemy he killed the day before.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

Summary: poem text

Its ironic tension between formal (academic, acceptable and cultivated) sonnet form and chaotic content.

 

Siegfried Sassoon biodata

 

BACKGROUNDING THE ERA

 

Casualties in World War I

Consult Trenches on the Web to explore the Great War. Australian women in World War I.

Read Henri Barbusse 1917 Under Fire "face to face with these dead, heaped up there like a woodpile."

Doing the Assessment

When analysing poetry, discuss its WHAT (= content and theme) and HOW (structure, techniques, language, tone, imagery, responses) it works. Theme is "what the poem's about" that is, a conclusion you reach after considering content, purpose, setting, poet. Theme is not a summary of content nor its point of view nor purpose. e.g., Wilfred Owen's theme is 'to warn about war and the wastage of war'.

When writing a Preface to an anthology:

• supply social, historical and literary contexts for the poets and the poems
• contrast their approaches; identify similarities, link elements of the theme
• justify these poems' inclusion in your selection for this Anthology
• indicate deeper meanings to be gleaned with re-readings (analysis of devices)
• entice the readers to read and make meanings for themselves.

Does "Poetry of Social Comment" mean that the poets and poems:

• protest
• comment on issues
• contradict
• deny
• contrast
• modify, qualify, rarify
• influence opinions about
• draw attention to, highlight, bring to our attention
• offer a view on
• suggest alternatives to
• propagandise?

Structuring your Preface

Poems selected here for this theme share ....

A poem's mood is perhaps the most potent weapon for engaging a reader's attention . . .

Poems employ a range of devices and techniques to convey messages and entertain readers . . . to amplify critical points they make and to reinforce impressions and expectations . . . Emotive associations are reinforced by powerfully nested metaphors . . Craftesmanship is essential to make impacts of social comment. . .

The structure of a poem can magnify the reader's enjoyment, appreciation and understanding ... A regular structure seems to predict familiarity and security while unconventional forms in themselves suggest heightened states of mind. . .

Readers will inevitably made up their own minds but it is in the experience of reading and rereading these poems that they can glimpse the visions the poets had . . . .

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