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WAR POETRY
(19th & 20thC) |
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WAR POETS
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PHILIP
LARKIN (1922-):
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Oxford
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reaction to 1940s' style of poetry:
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1940s: apocalyptic rhetoric, extravagances
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style: simple, quiet,
anti-romantic
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influence = HARDY
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à simple,
colloquial diction,
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short lines,
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traditional poetic forms,
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commonplace subjects,
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quiet pessimistic tone
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“Homage to a Government” (1974)
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"Homage to a Government"
Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home
For lack of money, and it is all right.
Places they guarded, or kept orderly,
We want the money for ourselves at home
Instead of working. And this is all right.
It's hard to say who wanted it to happen,
But now it's been decided nobody minds.
The places are a long way off, not here,
Which is all right, and from what we hear
The soldiers there only made trouble happen.
Next year we shall be easier in our minds.
Next year we shall be living in a country
That brought its soldiers home for lack of money.
The statues will be standing in the same
Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.
Our children will not know it's a different country.
All we can hope to leave them now is money.
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WAR POETS
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Carl Sandburg
(1878-1967)
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American (Illinois)
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day laborer, soldier, political activist, journalist,
historian (6-volume biography of Lincoln)
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--> color his poetry
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Austerlitz & Waterloo: battlefields of Napoleonic
Wars
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Gettysburg: Civil War battlefield
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Ypres & Verdun: WWI battlefields
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"Grass"
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Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
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Randall Jarrell
(1914-65)
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American poet & critic
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soldiers' fears & moral struggles
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Army soldier (control tower operator)
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see also
see & "The Grave" & Auden's "Unknown Citizen"
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"The Death of
the Ball Turret Gunner" (1945)
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From my mother's sleep I fell into
the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
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WAR POETS
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SIEGFRIED SASSOON
(1886-1967)
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*soldier-poet
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from spoiled rich boy to veteran
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from idealist to satiric realist, war poet
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most widely read poet of WWI
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style = satiric, direct, epigrammatic
colloquial
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tone = satiric, angry, bitter
(to anyone ignorant of the realities of war-politicians,
journalists, civilians)
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"Absolution"
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The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes
Till beauty shines in all that we can see.
War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise,
And, fighting for our freedom, we are free.
Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,
And loss of things desired; all these must pass.
We are the happy legion, for we know
Time’s but a golden wind that shakes the grass.
There was an hour when we were loth to part
From life we longed to share no less than others.
Now, having claimed this heritage of heart,
What need we more, my comrades and my brothers?
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Richard Lovelace
(1618-1658)
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*Cavalier poet
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autobiographical:
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“To Lucasta, On Going to the
Wars” (1649)
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Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.
True, a new mistress
now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.
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WAR POETS
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WILFRED OWEN
(1893-1918):
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*soldier-poet
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British infantry soldier
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killed in action (shortly after this was written,
shortly before the end of the war)
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although his goal = to show the truth of war (not
to write poetry)
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STYLE =
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only 4 published during life
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collection edited by Siegfried Sassoon
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"Dulce et Decorum Est"
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"Dulce et Decorum est"
(1917)
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots4
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
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WAR POETS
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Stephen Crane
(1871-1900)
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"War Is Kind" = his best & most reprinted poem
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tone = bitter irony
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hyperbole: exaggeration for emphasis (to know
that he is being ironic)
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imagery = "bright splendid shroud" = son's dress
uniform
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alliteration
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refrain
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paradox: flag = "the unexplained glory"
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structure:
Crane's "War
Is Kind" (complete)
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WAR
POETS
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"War Is Kind"
(1899)
excerpt, I of XXVII
- Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
- Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
- And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
- Do not weep.
- War is kind.
Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom --
A field where a thousand corpses lie.
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- Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
- Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
- Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
- Do not weep.
- War is kind.
Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.
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- Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
- On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
- Do not weep.
- War is kind.
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WAR POETS
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THOMAS HARDY
(1840-1928)
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southern England: Dorsetshire (“Egdon Heath” in books)
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taught violin, architecture as child
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*1860s:
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*UNIVERSE =
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controlled by a “seemingly malign fate”
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that pushed the characters toward a tragic ending
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no assistance from the “conventional theological
assumptions of the day”
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a rejection of middle-class morality, values
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*POETRY:
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1898: 1st volume of poetry
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29 years - 900 lyrics
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*poetry = wholly independent of conventional,
contemporary poetic style:
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TH “My poetry was revolutionary in the sense that I
meant to avoid the jewelled line....”
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book: “Instead, he strove for a rough, natural voice,
with rustic diction and irregular meters expressing
concrete, particularized impressions of life” (517).
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simple language and simple style
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(no affectations, no romanticism, no rhetoric)
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“The Man He Killed” (1902) war
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“Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?” (1914) witty satire,
irony
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“In Time of ‘Breaking of Nations’” (1916) Jer. 51:20,
WW1
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Hardy's "The Man
He Killed"
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WAR
POETS
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"Channel Firing"
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That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgement-day
And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into their mounds,
The glebe-cow drooled. Till God called, `No;
It's gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:
`All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you that are helpless in such matters.
`That this is not the judgement-hour
For some of them's a blessed thing,
For if it were they'd have to scour
Hell's floor for so much threatening...
`Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need).'
So down we lay again. `I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,'
Said one, `than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!'
And many a skeleton shook his head.
`Instead of preaching forty year,'
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
`I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.'
Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge
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WAR SONGS
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TOBY KEITH
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"American Soldier"
I'm just trying to be a father,
Raise a daughter and a son,
Be a lover to their mother,
Everything to everyone.
Up and at 'em bright and early,
I'm all business in my suit,
Yeah, I'm dressed up for success from my head down to my
boots,
I don't do it for the money, there's bills that I can't pay,
I don't do it for the glory, I just do it anyway,
Providing for our futures, my responsibility,
Yeah I'm real good under pressure, being all that I can be,
And I can't call in sick on Mondays when the weekend's been
too strong,
I just work straight through the holidays,
And sometimes all night long.
You can bet that I stand ready when the wolf growls at the
door,
Hey, I'm solid, hey I'm steady, hey I'm true down to the
core,
And I will always do my duty, no matter what the price,
I've counted up the cost, I know the sacrifice,
Oh, and I don't want to die for you,
But if dying's asked of me,
I'll bear that cross with an honor,
'Cause freedom don't come free.
I'm an American Soldier, an American,
Beside my Brothers and my Sisters I will proudly take a
stand.
When liberty's in jeopardy I'll always do what's right.
I'm out here on the front lines, sleep in peace tonight.
American Soldier,
I'm an American Soldier.
Yeah, an American Soldier,
An American.
Beside my Brothers and my Sisters I will proudly take a
stand,
When liberty's in jeopardy I'll always do what's right,
I'm out here on the front lines, so sleep in peace tonight.
American Soldier,
I'm an American,
American,
American Soldier
Toby Keith
lyrics
Video
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WAR
SONGS
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BILLY JOEL
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"Goodnight, Saigon"
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We met as soulmates
On Parris Inland
we left as inmates
from an asylum
and we were sharp
as sharp as knives
and we were so gung ho to lay down our lives.
We came in spastic
like tameless horses
we left in plastic
as numbered corpses
and we learned fast
to travel light
our arms were heavy but our bellies were tight
We had no homefront
we had no soft soap
they sent us playboy
they gave us bob hope
we dug in deep
and shot on sight
and prayed to Jesus Christ with all of our might.
We had no cameras
to shoot the landscape
we passed the hash pipe
and played our Doors tapes
and it was dark..
so dark at night
and we held onto each other
like brother to bother
we promised our mothers we'd write
(chorus)
and we would all go down together
we said we'd all go down together
yes we would all go down together.
Remember Charlie?
remember Baker?
they left their childhood
on every acre
and who was wrong,
and who was right?
It didn't matter in the thick of the fight,...
We, held the day,..
in the palm of our hands
They, ruled the night
And the night, seemed to last as long as six weeks
On Parris Island
We held the coastline
they held the highland
and they were sharp
as sharp as knives
they heard the hum of the mortars
they counted the rotors
and waited for us to arrive
(video)
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LINKS
LINKS
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