War Poetry

This is an introduction to War Poetry

1. War Poetry Introduction Ms. Vaidehi Hariyani (Research Scholar and Visiting Faculty) Department of English, MKBU

2. What is War Poetry? War poetry is a literary genre originated during war time when hundreds of soldiers, and also civilians caught up in conflict, started to write poetry as a way of striving to express extreme emotion at the very edge of experience. This type of poetry is almost “anti-war”, however it include the very large questions of life as: identity, innocence, humanity, compassion, guilt, loyalty, desire and death. This poems have a relation of immediate personal experience to moments of national and international crisis what gives war poetry an extra-literary importance. Later on, the work of a handful of these writers became a “sacred national text”.

3. Poets have written about the experience of war since the Greeks, but the young soldier poets of the First World War established war poetry as a literary genre. Their combined voice has become one of the defining texts of Twentieth Century Europe. In 1914 hundreds of young men in uniform took to writing poetry as a way of striving to express extreme emotion at the very edge of experience. The work of a handful of these, such as Owen, Rosenberg and Sassoon, has endured to become what Andrew Motion has called ‘a sacred national text’.

4. Although ‘war poet’ tends traditionally to refer to active combatants, war poetry has been written by many ‘civilians’ caught up in conflict in other ways: Cesar Vallejo and WH Auden in the Spanish Civil War, Margaret Postgate Cole and Rose Macaulay in the First World War, James Fenton in Cambodia. In the global, ‘total war’ of 1939-45, that saw the holocaust, the blitz and Hiroshima, virtually no poet was untouched by the experience of war. The same was true for the civil conflicts and revolutions in Spain and Eastern Europe. That does not mean, however, that every poet responded to war by writing directly about it. For some, the proper response of a poet was one of consciously (conscientiously) keeping silent

5. War poetry is not necessarily ‘anti-war’. It is, however, about the very large questions of life: identity, innocence, guilt, loyalty, courage, compassion, humanity, duty, desire, death. Its response to these questions, and its relation of immediate personal experience to moments of national and international crisis, gives war poetry an extra-literary importance. Owen wrote that even Shakespeare seems ‘vapid’ after Sassoon: ‘not of course because Sassoon is a greater artist, but because of the subjects’. War poetry is currently studied in every school in Britain. It has become part of the mythology of nationhood, and an expression of both historical consciousness and political conscience. The way we read – and perhaps revere – war poetry, says something about what we are, and what we want to be, as a nation

6. Soldiers are usually dressed with a uniform that is used at battlefields. This pattern is similar in most countries, using the typical forest or pixel camouflage, although the color of camouflage and other elements vary according to the geography in which a country would use its soldiers. Fear, sadness and impotence could be good adjectives that are used in this war poems and don't vary depending on the nationality of the soldiers. Also they are portrayed as heroes for the people because of their courage. How are soldiers typically portrayed? Is there a common theme which unites the various countries? What do these representations tell us about the society which produced such an image? What was the role played by women in war times?

7. By the 18th century, the role of women was accompanied armies assigned combat missions, usually they have roles such as cooking and laundry. Also, women worked in munitions factories and Nursing became a major role starting in the middle 19th century. The main role in World War I was employment in munitions factories, farming, and other roles to replace men drafted for the army.

8. Some Important War Poets Siegfried Sassoon Wilfred Owen Rupert Brooke Wilfrid Wilson Gibson Ivor Gruney

9. Selected War Poems 1.)Dulce et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen 2.) The Soldier – Rupert Brooke 3.) The Fear – Wilfrid Wilson Gibson 4.) The Hero – Sigfried Sassoon 5.) The Target – Ivor Gruney

10. Works Cited Editors,The . War Poetry. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/144683/war-poetry