War Poetry

War Poetry

Hello, I am Emisha Ravani, Writing this blog as the response to the teacher's blog as thinking activity (Bridge Course). Here i will discuss the answers which asked by teacher. 

1. What is your understanding of War Poetry? 

Poetry that deals with the subject of war. Often composed during a particular conflict, these poems are usually written by soldiers.War poetry is exclusively realistic, showing warfare in an unglamorous and unromantic light.  

War poetry got existence as literary genre during world war 1. Almost was poetries were anti romantic. Which seems against romantic poetry. War poets were known as also Trench poets. These poets wrote war poetries which they have experienced in the war. Though it is not like that only soldiers were writing this kind of poetries also civilians were writing war poetries.

Now, we should know that for what purpose they write war poetries! So, one reason we can say that when soldiers go to the wars they need the way of expressing their emotions. And poetry was the good way to express. By writing they want to show the horror of the war and as well as the dark side of the war.

Features of war poetry :

It is a kind of modern poetry. Naturalistic and painfully realistic, with shocking images and language, intending to show what the war really like, the war poetry showed the mud, the trenches, death, and sometimes even compassion for soldiers.

A war poet is a poet who participate in a war and writes about their experiences, or a non- combatant who writes poems about war. The reason that the soldiers in Worlds Wars wrote poetry is because they used it as an outlet for their feelings, they wanted to say what was happening in the trenches when others could not, and it was a pass-time for them during their downtime in the trenches.Let's see various figures of war poems,

Wilfred Owen

Siegfried Sassoon

Kingsley Amis

Christine Brooke-Rose

John McCrae

Rupert Brooke

Jack Beaching

Sidney Keyes

Themes of War Poems

·       The loss of innocence

·       Brotherhood and friendship

·       The horrors of war

·       Disillusionment with religion

·       Nature

·       Irrationality of war

·       Emotions and feelings

 2.Note down the difference of all the War Poets.

Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brook, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Siegfried Sassoon, Ivor Gurney.  

These are the five poets to compare here. Let’s move towards them one by one.

Wilfred Owen : Owen is known for his wrenching description of suffering in war. In this poem he illustrates the brutal everyday struggle of a company of soldiers.

Rupert Brook : A deep patriotic and idealistic soldier’s love for his homeland

Wilfred Wilson Gibson : Sense of honesty and compassion

Siegfried Sassoon : Disillusionment with the war

Ivor Gurney : Style of monologue

As above we can see that what is their specialities into writing poems. They were using their own ways to write. So we can say that by that view of style they are different to each other.

3.Compare any two poems with reference to the subject, style of writing and patriotism.

The Soldier - RUPERT BROOKE

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

This is the poem written during WW1. Deeply patriotic and idealistic poem which deals with expression of a soldier’s love for his homeland, in this poem England perhaps. The soldier feels that his country to be both the origin of his existence and the place to which his consciousness will return when he dies. We can feel here the particular type of patriotism. The Theme are here like war, patriotism and nationhood.

The Fear – Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

I do not fear to die

'Neath the open sky,

To meet death in the fight

Face to face, upright.

But when at last we creep

Into a hole to sleep,

I tremble, cold with dread,

Lest I wake up dead.

The poet Wilfred Wilson Gibson wrote this poem in the his collection ‘Battle’ , which centres upon the experience of WW1. He wrote with adoption of voice of both soldiers and civilians. The poem explores themes like guilt, madness, injury, death, and sense of identity. The poems contains brash patriotism.

 Here , we can compare both the poems by the structure, style and also adoption of emotions that how one is portraying the own emotions and another is portraying the two kind of emotions. Other thing is that one is optimistic point of view and another is pessimistic point of view.   

4.Do you find any such regional poem/movies/web series/songs which can be compared to any one of the poems given here. Also, give a proper explanation of the similarity.

The Target- Ivor Gurney

I shot him, and it had to be

One of us 'Twas him or me.

'Couln't be helped' and none can blame

Me, for you would do the same

My mother, she cant sleep for fear

Of what might be a-happening here

To me. Perhaps it might be best

To die, and set her fears at rest

For worst is worst, and worry's done.

Perhaps he was the only son. . .

Yet God keeps still, and does not say

A word of guidance anyway.

Well, if they get me, first I'll find

That boy, and tell him all my mind,

And see who felt the bullet worst,

And ask his pardon,if I durst.

All's a tangle. Here's my job.

A man might rave, or shout, or sob;

And God He takes takes no sort of heed.This is a bloody mess indeed.

I can find these both are similar in the style of narration of ‘Monologue’. In the soldier is saying the emotions of killed another man and his thoughts on it. This poem shows us the effect of the war on the ordinary man , also in this song soldier is saying to ordinary people (family members), to not cry on his death. He urge to remember him as a optimistic breeze of air. He shows his patriotism by the words like if I will not come back next year so do not cry for me, believe that I have died for the our homeland.    

Thank you!