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.