WAR POETS
Who were the soldiers?
World War I was fought on such a huge scale that very few communities remained untouched. Before
conscription was introduced into Britain for the first time in 1916, lots of young men enlisted. The officers
had mainly received an education based on the classics and the Victorian and Edwardian ideals of
nationalism.
Attitudes to war
When the war broke out, many young men enlisted regarding the war as a noble adventure. After the Battle
of the Somme in 1916, pride and excitement were replaced by doubt and disillusionment. The reaction to the
war passed through different stages:
● The patriotic enthusiasm that led many to enlist (they has not experience in war) (e.g. Rupert Brooke)
● The realisation that the war rhetoric was a lie. The anger came (main theme of Siegfried Sassoon’s poetry)
● The poetry gives voice to compassion: a sort of elegy for the young soldiers, who has to be loved and
admired (e.g. Wilfred Owen)
Trench warfare
Life in the trenches was hell because of: rain and mud; decaying bodies; repeated bombings; use of poison
gas. Soldiers wrote poems, songs and letters.
Who were the war poets?
A group of poets: volunteered to fight, experienced the fighting, in most cases lost their lives in the conflict,
and managed to represent modern warfare in a realistic and unconventional way. They awoke the conscience
of their readers to the horrors of the war. They were modern in subject-matter. They tried to find new modes
of expression. The recurrent themes of their poems are: courage, duty, glory, heroism, loss of innocence, pain
and suffering, patriotism, violence.
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
Live and works
He enlisted in the Royal Navy when World War I broke out. He took part in the war and actually saw some
little combat. In fact he contracted blood-poisoning and died in 1915 in the Greek Island of Skyros. In 1914
he wrote 5 poems, in which he advanced the idea that war is the way we have to show our country how much
we love it and how much honour we are to fight for it. In war the only thing that can suffer is the body, but in
the end death is a reward.
The soldier
In the first stanza, the poet tells the reader that if one day he should die in a foreign country, his dead body
will make (trasformerà) that land a better place because a piece of England will be buried (seppellito) there.
England is personified: she is like a mother to him who gave him life, education and good values. The poet
loves his country for its beautiful landscape full of flowers, rivers and roads where man can live in close
contact with nature. In the second stanza, the poet tells us that dying at war will be a way to show gratitude to
his mother country for all the joy and happiness that she gave him. The poet’s soul will be purified by his
HEROIC death and when he dies his spirit will be given back to England and will live forever in peaceful
hearts. English heaven= He couldn’t imagine anything better than England. Themes: Patriotism, Nationalism,
Propaganda, Pryde of being english, British attitude to feel superior, Idealistic view of war
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Live and works
He took part in the war: was sent to France in 1916. He had a traumatic experience in war. He was sent to
Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh for a shell shock. There he met the poet Siegfried Sassoon and
became good friends. He wrote his most famous poems from this time until he left the hospital. Every night
Owen had haunting nightmares. Sassoon suggested that he should write about these memories in poetry. He
was killed on 4th November 1918 in a German machine gun attack. His poems describe the conditions of
constant stress experienced by the soldiers; His poems have a haunting quality, a gravity and moral force
which make them suitable for any situation in which people must suffer and die.
Dulce et Decorum est
The poem is based on the poet’s experience of the horrors of war in the trenches and it is an attempt to
communicate the “pity of war” to future generations. The latin title means “it is sweet and honourable”; it is
a quotation from the Latin poem Horace (also the last verse), who borrowed the line from the Greek poet
Tyrtaeus. When a person reads the title they used to think that the poet supports the war but in reality he
speaks about the war in a realistic way.
First stanza:
(Subject: We, he and the soldiers) He describes the condition of soldiers with most details. Soldiers are so
tired and exhausted that they cannot do many things. There is a realistic description about the soldiers; they
are compared not to heroes but to social outcasts (they are like beggars and hags). All were irreversibly
marked by war: all crippled (zoppi) and blind. Soldiers look like puppets (fantocci) who can hardly survive.
Second stanza:
(I, he ) He described his personal experience in war, in particular the gas attack. The rhythm changes like the
march of the soldier because of the attack. There is a rush to wear gas masks that not everyone can put on;
not all the soldiers are quick enough and many of them die. Poet describes the horrible death because of the
gas. The image of those dead will torment the poet forever.
Third stanza:
(You) The last section is instead a sort of warning, dismissive (sprezzante) and ironic, addressed to those who
express opinions about the war and who consider it glorious and necessary. The poet speaks about his
dreams. He underlines that the action is going on. At the line 17-20 the poet speaks with the reader.
“Like a devil sick of sins” = that the war is so horrible that evil can feel sick of sins.
“Innocent tongues”=that young people that were convinced to fight but without knowing how they could die.
The poet uses concrete words to describe the details of this death.
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)
Live and works
He joined the war in 1915 and was sent to France. His reactions to the realities of the war were bitter and
violent. Sassoon protested publicly, reading out a declaration against the war in the House of Commons in
July 1917. He was not arrested because the review board was convinced he was suffering from shell shock.
He was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh, where he met and influenced Wilfred Owen. His
poems were collected in The Old Huntsman (1917) and in Counter-Attack (1918). Sassoon denounced the
political errors through anger and satire. He used a documentary manner to recreate the physical horror of the
war. His poems express neither compassion or pity (pietà), but shocking and realistic details. After the war he
became a resolute pacifist and got involved in politics with the Labour Party.
Sucide in the trenches
In the first stanza Sassoon wrote about a simple young soldier. He presented him remembering when this boy
wasn’t a soldier, in fact he was full of happiness and was able to sleep. In war he had to face the sound of
bombs, gunfire… so he was sad and couldn’t sleep.
In the second stanza Sassoon wrote about the fact that the boy is alone, sad and scared by the war. The
hygienic conditions are very bad so soldiers have to face diseases and lice (pidocchi). In war, soldiers used to
drink alcohol to avoid sadness and pain, but there isn’t alcohol. The young boy decides to end his pain and
shoots himself in his brain. This tragic end is not remembered as it is a normal thing for a soldier in that
period to kill himself after suffering from psychological trauma.
In the last stanza Sassoon talks directly to the contemporary society that presents the war as a good thing that
can give you glory, in fact it is only a horrible form of propaganda to involve more young soldiers in the war.
The last two lines are advice for those who encourage war to go back home and pray to never know what the
war actually looks like.
The word ‘trenches’ also emphasises that the depression the young soldier feels is common throughout all
the trenches. Sassoon uses the same structure that a children’s rhyme usually has, and this is perhaps
intended to emphasise that this boy, turned into a soldier.
