Two Fusiliers - Robert Graves

Form:	3 quatrains in tetrameter Last two lines of stanzas in dimeter, which puts an emphasis on the end of each stanza. ABBA rhyme scheme in first stanza.
Language:	Repetition of ‘By’ enforces the idea that it was due to a range of experiences on the front that their friendship was formed. The final line- ‘In dead men, breath.’ Suggests perhaps that although these men have died, there is still hope for humanity as they have left their memories behind.
Structure:	First stanza states the strength of their friendship Second stanza states the events that shaped their friendship/ comradeship Third stanza challenges Sassoon to find a friendship stronger as theirs has been formed by death.
Tone :	One of optimism, suggesting that there is still hope for humanity and also rejoicing the fact that something good has come out of such horror.

Winter Warfare- Edgell Rickword

Form: Five quatrains, each a single sentence.

Language: ·         Use of vivid imagery to drive home the unbearable conditions that the soldiers were subjected to. ·         (Talking about ice) ‘Turned the wire into fleecy wool,/ Iron stakes to sugar sticks/ Snapping at the pull.’ Poet here suggests that nature is able to easily break something that can tear men apart. Displaying natures triumph over humanity. ·         Describes how the conditions were unbearable for both sides: ‘Saw two figures gleaming there;/ Haumptman Kalte, Colonel Cold’ (Haumptman Kalte being German for Colonel Cold).

Structure: Poet begins by depicting ‘Colonel Cold’, who is perhaps not a character but symbolic of war, as having an effect on everything in its path, suggesting nothing can escape the grasps of war. However ends by depicting nature as triumphing over man, with ‘Those who watched with hoary eyes’ (‘hoary eyes’ meaning ice and snow on eyelashes). Perhaps suggesting that although man destroys everything in its path, nature will always reign superior.

Tone : Very cold and despondent tone used to depict the harsh conditions under which these soldiers had to live and perhaps encourage the reader to feel pity for them.

The Deserter- Gilbert Frankau

Form:

· Three quatrains of irregular metre; nevertheless the poem moves at a fast pace.

· The second and forth lines of each stanza rhyme.

· Individual lines have mechanical rhythms, such as: ‘The bolt-heads locked to the cartridge’ perhaps showing the mechanical nature of soldiers that had been removed of emotion and now simply carried out orders.

Language:

· ‘shameless soul of a nameless man´ perhaps shows how the poet had admiration for this man who had the courage to stand up against the horrors of war.

· The only word with any emotion/ energy/ zest is ‘Fire!’ and this is a death command, perhaps suggesting that soldiers had been degraded to a point where all they now knew was death.

Tone:

Tone is almost cold as the poet appears to cynically mock the idea of heroic war stories.

Wider reading

Jessie Pope

·         Jessie Pope is a World War One poet and is female quiet contradictory to the male dominant poems in Gardener’s ‘Up the Line to Death’.

·         Her poem ‘The Call’ depicts the men going off to war in a patriotic manner suggested by images such as ‘banners and rolling drums’; her poetry may be regarded as propaganda with its romanticized war and victorious tone further implied by the repetition of ‘will you’ which encourages the idea that the men should fight for their country; it is their duty.

·         Who’s for the trench—
Are you, my laddie?
Who’ll follow French—
Will you, my laddie?
Who’s fretting to begin,
Who’s going out to win?
And who wants to save his skin—
Do you, my laddie?Who’s for the khaki suit—
Are you, my laddie?
Who longs to charge and shoot—
Do you, my laddie?
Who’s keen on getting fit,
Who means to show his grit,
And who’d rather wait a bit—
Would you, my laddie?

Who’ll earn the Empire’s thanks—
Will you, my laddie?
Who’ll swell the victor’s ranks—
Will you, my laddie?
When that procession comes,
Banners and rolling drums—
Who’ll stand and bite his thumbs—
Will you, my laddie?

·         Her work was often contributed to The Punch and The Daily Mail which further implies her work is patriotic propaganda. Owen’s poem Dulce Et Decorum Est  was aimed at Pope as her reputation had faded into obscurity as Graves and Sassoon began to play a more prominent role in World War One Poetry.

All Quiet On the Western Front

·         It is written from a German perspective.

·         An overview: There are several German boys in a class and their teacher advices them to go off to war; note these boys are seventeen to eighteen. They go off to war and the story is of them going off to war and one by one being wiped out. Poignantly it ends with death of the last soldier from the class with the report filed as all quiet on the Western Front.

·         Initially the soldiers are presented as patriotic but as war worsens they become more distant and angry towards war treating it with contempt.

·         Interestingly, the novel focuses around these seven characters which adds individualism to the novel and adds a personal level to the book making the audience all the ore drawn in.

Her Privates We

·         The novel is set on the Western Front which exposes its audience to much destruction and warfare much like Birdsong. Despite this, elements of the soldiers being bored in battle are described quite different from some of the previous portrayals that have been given in other novels.

·         The language throughout is violent which words such as ‘obliterated’; at times Manning uses bad language to grasp the complete horrors of war and exploit the situation.

An unpoetic interlude

Righto I found some quotes which I wrote down from 'All Quiet On The Western Front' so will put them up on here.



- They are more to me than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my comrades.

- I am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in the darkness;--I belong to them and they to me; we all share the same fear and the same life, we are nearer than lovers, in a simpler, a harder way; I could bury my face in them, in these voices, these words that have saved me and will stand by me.

　
- The silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him and say to him: "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up--take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now."

- His tunic is half open. The pocket-book is easy to find. But I hesitate to open it. In it is the book with his name. So long as I do not know his name perhaps I may still forget him, time will obliterate it, this picture. But his name, it is a nail that will be hammered into me and never come out again. It has the power to recall this for ever, it will always come back and stand before me.

- "After all, war is war."

- Their skin turns pale, their limbs stiffen, at last only their eyes live--stubbornly.

-I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world see these things; all my generation is experiencing these things with me. What would our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered our account? What do they expect of us if a time ever comes when the war is over? Through the years our business has been killing;--it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what shall come out of us?

-We have almost grown accustomed to it; war is a cause of death like cancer and tuberculosis, like influenza and dysentery. The deaths are merely more frequent, more varied and terrible.

- Our thoughts are clay, they are moulded with the changes of the days;--when we are resting they are good; under fire, they are dead.

-Distinctions, breeding, education are changed, are almost blotted out and hardly recognisable any longer

-It is as though formerly we were coins of different provinces; and now we are melted down, and all bear the same stamp.

-First we are soldiers and afterwards, in a strange and shamefaced fashion, individual men as well.

- Here, on the borders of death, life follows an amazingly simple course, it is limited to what is most necessary, all else lies buried in gloomy sleep;--in that besides our primitiveness and our survival.
- All other expressions lie in a winter sleep, life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death;--it has transformed us into unthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct--it has reinforced us with dullness, so that we do not go to pieces before the horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, conscious thought--it has awakened in us the sense of comradeship, so that we escape the abyss of solitude--it has lent us the indifference of wild creatures, so that in spite of all, we perceive the positive in every moment, and store it up as a reserve against the onslaught of nothingness. Thus we live a closed, hard existence of the utmost superficiality, and rarely does an incident strike out a spark. But then unexpectedly a flame of grievous and terrible yearning flares up.

- We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out.

- Every day and every hour, every shell and every death cuts into this thin support, and the years waste it rapidly. I see how it is already gradually breaking down around me.

- Our artillery is fired out, it has too few shells and the barrels are so worn that they shoot uncertainly, and scatter so widely as even to fall on ourselves. We have too few horses. Our fresh troops are anaemic boys in need of rest, who cannot carry a pack, but merely know how to die. By thousands.

- It is nothing that regiment after regiment returns again and again to the ever more hopeless struggle, that attack follows attack along the weakening, retreating, crumbling line.

　
-We do not see the guns that bombard us; the attacking lines of the enemy infantry are men like ourselves; but these tanks are machines, their caterpillars run on as endless as the war, they are annihilation, they roll without feeling into the craters, and climb up again without stopping, a fleet of roaring, smoke-belching armour-clads, invulnerable steel beasts squashing the dead and the wounded--we shrivel up in our thin skin before them, against their colossal weight our arms are sticks of straw, and our hand-grenades matches.

- Shells, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks--shattering, corroding, death.

   Dysentery, influenza, typhus--scalding, choking, death.

   Trenches, hospitals, the common grave--there are no other possibilities.

- The storm lashes us, out of the confusion of grey and yellow the hail of splinters whips forth the child-like cries of the wounded, and in the night shattered life groans painfully into silence.

- Our hands are earth, our bodies clay and our eyes pools of rain. We do not know whether we still live.

- Here my thoughts stop and will not go any farther. All that meets me, all that floods over me are but feelings--greed of life, love of home, yearning for the blood, intoxication of deliverance. But no aims.

- Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hopeable to find our way any more.

-And men will not understand us--for the generation that grew up before us, though it has passed these years with us already had a home and a calling; now it will return to its old occupations, and the war will be forgotten--and the generation that has grown up after us will be strange to us and push us aside. We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered;--the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin.

-I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life
that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me.

England to Her Sons - W. N. Hodgson

Form:

3 stanzas of 5 lines with the last longer line revealing the overall message of the stanza

Language:

- 'bore' England personified as a mother - patriotism - fighting for values close to their heart

- 'unto his beloved sleep' euphemism for death

- patriotic and romantic

- 'little' not much death

Structure:

-monosylabic "loss and failure, pain and death" hinting at the horrors of war ingrained in the middle  of the poem so the overall message remains positive

Tone:

-romanticised : war is about freedom and justice

-undertones of slight bitterness and resent, "little space to weep"

-jingoist

Reader response:

-propaganda - contemporary support - excitement of war

- modern angered by the persuasive language leading to the death of so many

Links :

- Happy is England Now

- High Wood

Breakfast- Wilfred Gibson

Form:         

Language:
-Depicts the resilience of soldiers under abnormal conditions- ‘we ate our breakfast lying on our backs’- they have made a slight change but are continuing as normal.
-Three actions happen in one sentence: ‘Ginger raised his head/ And cursed, and took the bet, and dropt back dead.’ This perhaps demonstrates the immediacy of death and highlights how quite how sudden and unexpected a soldier’s death could be.

Structure:
-Iambic pentameter is used to give a conversational and narrative mood to the poem which tells of the thin line between life and death.
-The repetition of ‘We ate our breakfast lying on our backs’ gives the poem a ‘complete’ structure. Perhaps this is the poet showing that for this dead soldier the journey is complete.
-This repetition could also represent how following a death soldiers merely carried on without mourning, maybe because they had become accustomed to death.

Tone :
Tone has a faintly comical edge helped by the use of the onomatopoeic word ‘screeching’ which may highlight the fact that death was just something that happened in the poets eyes and that soldiers did not mourn they just accepted it.

Reader responses:
-May be interpreted as the poet highlighting the inevitability of death and the thin line between it and life.
-However could also be seen in a positive light as, at times, the poet appears to depict the perseverance of soldiers and their resilience in the face of adversity (adverse conditions ect.).

Links:
The Rear-Guard by Sassoon. Within this poem Sassoon suggest that those on the front did not care about the dead: ‘Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap.’

From the Somme - Leslie Coulson

Form:          
Is an example of Lyric poetry: has the viewpoint of a minstrel or singer.

Language:
Poet begins by using soft childlike/adolescent imagery and language in the opening stanzas, whilst describing his life before the war (‘Deep in the forest I made a melody’). However the poet contrasts this with sharp tone that abruptly changes the mood in the second to last stanza (‘Now I have cast my broken toys aside/ And flung my lute away.’)demonstrating how the war dramatically changed the character of the men whom fought in the war.

Structure:
-Six quatrains with alternate rhyme
-First three lines of a stanza are iambic pentameter which leads to a ‘cut off’ in the final line. This has the effect of emphasising the final line.

Tone :
Soft tone in the earlier stanzas is contrasted by a much sharper one in the final two stanzas, this emphasises the ‘change of character’ which the persona/ poet has been subject to/ undergone.

Reader responses:
- Perhaps suggests that young soldiers (adolescence) were forced to mature and grow up too fast, carelessly throwing away childhood.
-The poet may have attempted to demonstrate the way in which war gradually degraded the minds of those who fought within it.

Links:

-‘Break of Day in the Trenches’ by Rosenberg also hints towards the idea of a wasted youth.
- ‘The Sentry’ by Owen also presents the mental scares of conflict that these soldiers bore. ‘Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him here’ suggests that although the poet has chosen to forget this event, it replays to him in his sleep.

Language

·         Immediately ethereal images are presented of ‘fairy rings’ suggesting a Georgian style of writing on behalf of Coulson.

·         The poet uses sibilance of ‘sing to sea and sky’ to create a softer rhythm which is not typical of this section which perhaps suggests that the world pre-war was peaceful. As well as this ‘silvered silence’ implies that due to the boom of the guns etc. there is no peace anymore and therefore it is treasured implied by the regal colour of ‘silvered’.

·         The poet uses bird imagery of ‘larks’ which is a symbol for freedom and escapism. It may be a paradox to horrors of war.

·         As the end of the poem approaches the tone changes to become more bitter and twisted and therefore shocks the reader. From ‘for my poor lips to tell’, the poet alludes to being injured and hurt; alternatively, he may be suggesting that everything in the war in censored and therefore alluding to the ignorance of people at the home front.

Structure

·         Iambic pentameter to iambic triameter which initially drags out the notes and sounds to create an ethereal world but later develops to more vicious.

·         There is a regular rhyme scheme to suggest the Georgian nature of the poem which adds a romanticized tone.

Tone

·         The tone is romantic and Georgian suggested by the sibilance created throughout the poem.

In Time of the Breaking of Nations - Thomas Hardy

Title of the poem comes from : Jeremiah, 51:20— "Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms."


Form
- Four quatrains

- Alternate rhyme


- Each stanza has an equal amount of lines of three lines; however some have longer lines than others. For example: ‘with an old horse that stumbles and nods’ creates a drawn out rhythm adding to the lengthiness of the poem. It suggests the war is long or that it has been much anticipated for a long time.

　

Language-Double meaning of "harrowing" - preparing the ground for seeds - deeply upsetting

- Assonance in only, clods, slow, horse, nods and sibilance in "In a slow, silent walk" create a soft pace which mimics the subject of the poem

- "Only thin smoke without flame" - contrasts to the violance of war , suggests that rural life is much gentler

- The idea of solidarity - Everything will be "the same"

- Archaic language "Yonder a maid and her wight" - Love is timeless

- "War’s annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die"

Annals are books on a particular period of time and ere is an old word for before . So hence the line is suggesting that war will be forgotten about long before love is . This evokes a sense of timelessnes


-    The writer uses sibilance (‘in a slow silent walk’) to create an ethereal tone; it may represent the fatigue of the soldiers on one level but on another it may imply a walk to deaths door – does it imply the longness of death?

-    ‘Harrowing clods’ hints to a farmer turning over the ground but perhaps it is a hint to the loathsomeness of the soldiers  implied by ‘harrowing’ OR it may be that the farmer who fertilizes this ground is in a sense digging their graves before battle; therefore Hardy foreshadows once against the inevitability of death.

Structure:

- Short fragmented lines

- Enjambment slows the meter and creates a sense of timelessness

- Rural images trhoughout suggests that nature is persistant

-    Hardy uses enjambment a lot to anticipate the coming of great battles; with chivalric images of ‘yonder a maid and her wight’ (‘wight’ means knight), Hardy alludes to the reproach of a battle and therefore uses this romanticized chivalric image to show the greatness of war. However, this is contradicted by the ‘their story die’ with the sharp full stop to show the inevitability of death and critcize the romantic depiction of war that has previously been presented.

-      The sharp blunt full stop creates an air of bitterness throughout the poem. It is like a piece of anti-war propaganda.
Tone:

- Calm peaceful tone

- Endearing mood towards love

- Sence of triumph to finnish through the suggestion that love will continue eternally

-  The tone is quite ethereal created by the archaic imagery of the ‘maid’ and ‘wight’ which suggests that war is surreal and out of the ordinary further implied by the regularity of the stanzas which creates a more Georgian tone.


Reader response:
- Some people at the time were critical of the fact that the poem appears to gloss over the horrors of war

- However for some people it would have been a welcome break from the horrors

- Some may find the underlying message of the poem a fitting distraction from war and a great lesson to humanity

Links :

- Nineteen- fifteen because of its archaic and fertile images.

- Contrasts with the horrors expressed in Sassoon's poems

- It may link to the Leveller because of its allusions to nature.

Nineteen-fifteen - John Drinkwater

Form
- Four quatrains

- Rhyming couplets

-iambic tetrameter

- It’s a poem, obviously.

- The stanza’s are all of equal length of four lines with a regular rhyme scheme to once again add to the romanticised tone of the poem.


Language
- Bucolic, idealised, utopian , bountiful, rich salubrious , fertile imagery shows the cycle of life

- "Black" pine tree - charred but still standing - nature stubbornly carrying on

- Vernal images of "green"fields  reinforce this idea

- Archaic language suggests that nature has persisted throughout time

- Futility - man achieves so much and yet rejects it

- Mocks man who sees himself as "master of all" - Irony

-        The writer uses a lot of images of fertility and wholesomeness; this is contradictoryto the horrors of war which the writer alludes to with words such as‘ploughed’.

- ‘Ploughed’ may initially suggest farming hinting that it is a symbol for fertility and fruitfulness. However, it may have sinister undertones that the men are bred for slaughter; they are ‘ploughed’down hinting they are aggressively all mowed down by machine guns.

-        Time is personified as mocking and sardonic which may foreshadow death. The writer uses the metaphor of the‘black pine tree’ which immediately changes the tone of the poem; the colour imagery of ‘black’ implies bleakness and that war has taken away images of light from the world leaving a dark one filled with horror and bleakness. It may also imply nature is punishing man. The caesuras at this point (‘time, which is now a black pine tree’) separates the positivity of the land with the death of nature. This may suggest a separation between fertility and the destruction of man making it a paradox.

-        The poem is set pre-Somme so it may be an allusion to the land before the Somme. The writer talks about the fertility of the land and describes a paradoxical world in the Somme Battle.

-There are religious connotations; Psalm 23 is hinted to through ‘the pasture’which implies God is ordering the men to die which appears strange against the bucolic backdrop the writer depicts.

Structure:

- Ends with a sarcastic question to undermine man's authority

-Powerful images of nature feature in every stanza to suggests that it dominates
-      The poem is written in iambic quatrameter to show a romanticized tone and a Georgian style of writing; this adds to the idea of the bucolic life before the Somme and then the destruction during and after the battle.

-        There is a lack of enjambment to show the slow shift between pre-battle and battle; it hints of the progressions of more advanced machinery and more inhumanity.


Tone:
- Bucholic , natural

- Foolishness of man

-The tone is romanticised but has bitter undertones about how man can destroy nature and therefore nature works against man.

-There is no succinct relationship between nature and man as man chooses to override what it has with its creation of battles and destruction.

Reader response:

- The reader may feel angered by humanity's blind engineering of its own downfall

- Perhaps a sense of admiration towards nature's solidarity

Links :
- In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'

- Channel Firing

- It can be linked to any of the ‘Happy is England Now’ section because of the romanticised tone; they can be compared to show the different messages. How does the writer use these romantic tones to depict different messages?

-        It could be linked to ‘Exposure’ by Wilfred Owen; he talks about the cold so it could be compared in terms of nature there. However, Owen uses more pathetic fallacy rather than bucolic images.

-        It may link to ‘To the One Who Was With Me In The War’ because of the perception of time.

An Irish Airman foresees his Death - W. B. Yeats

The Pouges' rendition of the poem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Loq95zsixBk

Form
-Solliloquy

- 16 lines in continuous verse

- Regular rhyme - smooth regularity and indifference - no fear

- Iambic tetrameter

Language:- The language conveys the man's indifference to all sides "those that I fight I do not hate" - sense of detachment

- A sense of loneliness "no likely end could bring them loss" - no one cares about him

- No value to his life - "wasted breath"

- Pronouns "I" and "my" show that he cares only about himself - sense of isolation

Structure:

- caesura at the end of the poem slows the meter imitating the narrator thinking through his life.

- The caesura between "this life, this death" is used to show that the two are entirely incompatible and emphasises the juxtaposition

Tone:

- Pessimistic

- Willing on death

- Certainty

Reader response:-A modern audience would feel a sense of sympathy towards the narrator who appears to have nothing to live for

- Many young men at the time would be able to understand how the man felt, as they too experienced such disillusionment due to lacking a purpose in life

Links :
- Rendezvous - Willingness to die

- This is no Case of Petty Right or Wrong - Impartiality

In Flanders Fields - John McCrae

Form
- French Rondeau (15 lines written split into 3 stanzas) over 2 rhymes

- lyric poem - reveals emotions

-Iambic terameter

Language:
- Bird imagary "the larks, still bravely singing, fly" suggests freedom in death

- Frequent alliteration which creates a soft comforting tone- "crosses, row on row" -"saw sunset" - "Loved and were loved, and now we lie"

- Symbolism - the "torch" is a metaphor for their duty

- Idea that the "glow" of human warmth has since been extinguished

- Sense of belonging in "our place" as if they were meant to die


Structure:

- Comma between "loved and were loved, and now we lie" to separate life from death
- Initial tone of tranquillity and peace develops into that of determination
Tone:- Initial peaceful tone creates a mood of tranquility

- This develops into that of pathos at the loss of life

- The final stanza climaxes in a determined frenzy, encouraging a sense of duty

- A sense of guilt is evoked by "we shall not sleep" which wills on the reader to carry on

Reader response:
- The poem would have given comfort to those grieving by suggesting that the dead are at peace and suggesting that they did not die in vain.

- The rousing element of this poem would have encouraged young men to carry on and take the place of their fallen comrades

- Pacifists may disagree with the pro war ending , suggesting we should continue the slaughter


Links :

- Contrast peace in death with Dulche et Decorum Est and the sense of purpose with Anthem for Doomed Youth

- Reflection on death - In Memoriam - Soliloquy

The Dead - Rupert Brooke

Form:

- The start of the poem begins with alliteration: “blow out, you bugles”, this harsh, plosive ‘b’ sound helps to portray the action out on the front-line.
- Stanza length increases as the poem develops, as if he is coming nearer to reaching his own death.

Language:

- Brooke states that death is superior as it “has made us rarer gifts than gold”, suggesting that death is a reward/privilege out at war.
- The use of monosyllabic words shows feelings of aggression and anger.
- The line: “poured out the red sweet wine of youth”, displays an image of blood, therefore suggesting that the youth have wasted their lives by sacrificing themselves for no real cause.

Structure:

- The use of exclamation marks helps to exaggerate the poet’s feelings towards the dead.
- The use of full-stops help to present the inevitability of death, and it also brings a blunt and direct tone to the poem.

Tone:

- Death appears quite tranquil and peaceful to the poem; as he describes it as an “unhoped serene”.
- War brought “holiness”, “love”, “pain”, and “honour” to countries – presents that although war has taken the youth from a country, it has also given particular qualities back to a country.

Reader response:

- Modern readers may find it difficult to comprehend that the men saw death as escapism; they may not be able to understand that the men would have rather died that stayed out at war; they can’t imagine the conditions the men endured.

Links :

- Wasted youth: ‘Recruiting’ by E.A.Mackintosh.
- Sense of embracing the dead: ‘In Flanders Fields’ by John McRae.

 

Untitled (‘When you see…’) - C.H.Sorley

Form:

- Continuous text, which may convey his shock at the “millions of the mouthless dead”.
- The use of alliteration: “say not soft things as other men have said”, the alliteration helps to soften what the poet is portraying.

Language:

- The dead are described as “mouthless” – so there’s an inability to have their voices heard – even though the scale of human loss is evident, war still continues; the politicians don’t try to stop it – proving there’s no meaningful conversation between life and death.
- The poet presents the reality and brutality of war by the use of violent and graphic imagery: “heaped on each gashed head”.

Structure:

- By ending the poem bluntly by the use of a full-stop, it presents the idea that death is inevitable, and as the last line states “death has made all his for evermore”, it shows how death is relentless.
- The caesura in the fourth line helps to puts emphasis on the word “remember”, hinting that this is something the home-front shouldn’t forget.

Tone:

- The poet creates quite a haunting and ghostly feel to the poem, as the battalions are described as “pale”.
- Shows a disregard for life as he states that “it is easy to be dead”, suggesting that death is better than life.
- Lack of respect for the dead soldiers; you shouldn’t pay respect to them as they don’t deserve “tears”, “nor honour”.

Reader response:

- Modern day readers would be confronted with the reality of war due to the graphic imagery within the poem.
- Any war veterans would see this poem as a memory and a reminder of what they endured.

Links :

- Death is an escape from life: ‘Exposure’ by Wilfred Owen.
- Lack of respect for the dead men: ‘In Parenthesis’ by David Jones.

No Case of Petty Right and Wrong - E. Thomas

Form:

- A continuous piece of text.
- Irregular rhyme scheme, followed by rhyming couplets on the last eight lines of the poem.

Language:

- Poet hints to that the men signed up just “to please newspapers”, therefore suggesting that the men were forced to be patriotic.
- Poet states that events “can rake out of the ashes”, showing that he believes that one conflict ends, another arises.

Structure:

- The use of punctuation in the middle of lines help to convey the poet’s confusion, and that he doesn’t know what is “right or wrong”.
- Every line starts with a capital letter, which reinforces his anger at the home-front.

Tone:

- Mentions nature in a way that says, although nature is beautiful, it causes a lot of damage.
- Anger and hatred for the politicians: “beside my hate for one fat patriot, my hatred of the Kaiser is love true” – suggesting that, compared to his hate for the politicians, his hatred for the Kaiser is true love – therefore showing the depth of his emotions to people of his own country; he feels like he needs to be saved from patriotism.

Reader response:

- A modern audience may feel disappointed and angry at the politicians/home-front for their involvement in misleading the men, and letting the men go to war just to be slaughtered.
- Any war veterans may feel the same level of disgust and hatred at the politicians for sending them off to war just “to please newspapers”.

Links :

-  Personification of England: ‘Happy Is England Now’ by John Freeman.
- Sense that the soldiers were forced into war: ‘Mesopotamia’ by Rudyard Kipling.

 

Into Battle - Julian Grenfell

Form:
- Octet, followed by a sestet, then the rest of the poem is structured into quatrains, hinting that the poet’s thoughts are becoming more structured and organised as time passes – unlike war.
- Regular rhyme scheme allows emphasis and purpose to the poet’s thoughts.

Language:
- Includes a euphemism on the last line: “And Night shall fold him in soft wings”, this presents quite an idealised and also glamourised death.
- Grenfell frequently uses personification throughout the poem – therefore suggesting the soldier’s connection and familiarity with nature.

Structure:
- The comma’s in the middle of lines help to slow the pace, which therefore, helps to generate a romanticised feel to the poem.
- The exclamation mark in the line: “O patient hearts, courageous hearts!”, puts emphasis on the poet’s feelings.
- Full stop on the very last line makes it blunt and final; therefore it helps to convey that death is inevitable.

Tone :
- Romanticised tone, which is reinforced by the personification of nature, and the euphemism of death.
- Pro-war as it shows nature working with man; they go hand in hand to create victory.

Reader responses:
 - Modern readers may feel sympathetic that the poet believed he would have a peaceful, idealised death, when in reality it would be brutal and painful.
- Other soldiers may agree and associate with the poet’s connection with nature; they’ve been out at war for so long, it’s what they’re used to.

Links:
- Frequent personification: ‘Happy Is England Now’ by John Freeman.
- Nature-based imagery: ‘Untitled (All the hills and vales along)’ by C.H.Sorley.
- Euphemism of death: ‘Rendezvous’ by Alan Seeger.

Rendezvous - Alan Seeger

Form:

Regular iambic rhythm which alters slightly into iambic pentameter in the middle of the second stanza. It abruptly halts the sweet tone of love and seems to be a representation of the way in which death halts everything.

Language:

Repetition – “I have a rendezvous with death” makes it seem imperative and unavoidable. Referencing to the imminent and inevitable nature of death

Personification – “he shall take my hand” by personifying death, the poet almost euphemises his fate. He almost speaks of death as a Godly figure which is guiding him. The idea of taking his hand is gentle and comforting and almost causes him to regress. It makes the poet seem vulnerable and child-like and the common theme of the innocence of those who fought and died it apparentStructure:

Lack of caesura – depicts that he is continuously moving towards his fate and will not stop until his is dead. Determination. It is almost as though this is his calling

Tone:

Glory in death.

Determination.

Reader response:

A 1914 reader would not find this poem particularly shocking but to someone who has not experienced the propaganda, the poet’s determination to die is highly shocking

Links :

Into Battle