War Poetry

 War Poetry

Hello everyone this blog is a response to a thinking activity task assigned by Prakruti Ma’am.

#One poem from the English literary canon which deals with the theme of war and compare it with any one of the five war poems you have studied in this unit. [Discuss aspects like the style of the poems, language employed, treatment of the theme of war, etc.] 

War poetry occupies a very important position in the English literary canon, capturing the multifaceted experiences of war, its heroism, tragedy, patriotism, and futility. 

Among the most renowned contributions are Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" and Alfred Lord Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade." While both celebrate the bravery of soldiers, they differ greatly in tone, style, and their treatment of war.

In "The Soldier," Rupert Brooke portrays war as an exalted and spiritual venture. The poem is a moving reflection on the ultimate sacrifice made by soldiers, where death in battle becomes a redemptive act. Brooke sees war as an opportunity for eternal unity with one's homeland, England. His perspective is patriotic and idealistic, as he write : 

“If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.”

As a matter of fact, war is portrayed by Brooke through honor and the spiritual attachment between a soldier and their homeland. Death is meant as a way to enrich foreign soil with “English dust”.

In “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Tennyson explores war from both heroism and futility. The poem is based on a specific historical event in the Crimean War, which was the ill-fated charge of British cavalry because of a miscommunication, where Tennyson underlines the bravery of the soldiers but also shows the cost of human error. As he writes:

"Someone had blundered,"

He underlines the tragedy of the circumstance. At the same time, the poem celebrates the valor of soldiers who faced virtual death with unwavering courage:

“Into the valley of Death ,Rode the six hundred.”

Whereas Brooke universalizes the experience of war, Tennyson grounds his narrative in a historical specificity of both grandeur and grim realities of the event.

Style and structure

Brook's "The Soldier" also is a sonnet because this form is traditionally characterized as love and reverence. This structure, an octave followed by a sestet, allows for contemplative reflection on death and what it means. With such a choice, a sonnet takes on a formal, reflective tone that deepens its idealistic message. Using iambic pentameter also adds further ornament and structure to the poem, perfecting its theme of sacrificing one's self for patriotic ends.

While Tennyson uses the balladic structure but a strong rhythm of running horses in "The Charge of the Light Brigade" while the poem's very rhythm and repetition ("Half a league, half a league") are what tell of the charge as it surges forward, with no movement that can stop, no turning back. The irregular line lengths create the sense of confusion and chaos of warfare and bring the reader in among the action. While there is quiet reflection in Brooke's sonnet, there is drama and even urgency in Tennyson's ballad.

Treatment of war 

Brooke's "The Soldier" takes war only as an instrument to guarantee eternal peace and unity with homeland. Tone is calm, respectful as he speaks highly of the spiritual benefits drawn from death without going as far to describe the carnage war brings.

Then there is Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade," on the other end of things. While paying homage to brash courageousness of such soldiers who were needlessly killed for the misadventure. The line,

 “Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die” 

shows the unquestioning obedience of soldiers and the tragic cost of war. The fact that Tennyson brings out both the heroism and the human cost of conflict makes his treatment a more complex exploration of war.

How are they different? Are there any similarities?

Despite the difference between these two poems, they also share some similarities. The two poets honor the brave and sacrificial soldiers in their poems by depicting them as symbols of national pride. Each of the poems reveals a sense of close attachment to England and of duty toward the mother country. Both immortalize the soldiers, but through differing approaches: Brooke by spiritual idealism and Tennyson through historical valor. However, the tone, imagery, and perspective on war separate the two poems. Brooke's tone is reflective and calm, whereas Tennyson's is urgent and dramatic. Brooke uses peaceful, pastoral imagery, whereas Tennyson uses vivid, battle-focused descriptions. Finally, Brooke idealizes war as noble and redemptive, whereas Tennyson acknowledges its dual nature as both heroic and tragic.

# “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.” Discuss this statement in the context of any two of the war poems you have studied.

War poetry does not always promote an anti-war voice. In fact, these poems more often than not address serious questions regarding the nature of humankind, especially identity, innocence, guilt, loyalty, courage, and even death. This can indeed be proved with two contradicting war poems: the first being Wilfrid Wilson Gibson's "The Fear" and the latter Siegfried Sassoon's "The Hero." These pieces really represent that complex nature of war itself and, thus, diverge from merely condemning situations to focus on the inner lives.

Identity and Innocence

In "The Fear," Gibson has discussed the erosion of identity and the effects of fear on the psyche of a soldier. The poem is full of a group of soldiers paralyzed by terror as they wait for their fate. The soldiers' collective experience reduces their individuality and makes them faceless representatives of human vulnerability. Innocence is taken away by the harsh realities of war, leaving behind a haunting sense of loss.

Similarly, "The Hero" looks at identity but from a posthumous perspective. Sassoon contrasts the image of a soldier as perceived by his grieving family with the grim reality of his death. The mother is told her son died a hero, while the truth—his fear and inglorious demise—is concealed. This juxtaposition questions the societal narratives that idealize soldiers while masking the emotional and physical toll on their humanity

Guilt and Duty

Both poems deal with issues of guilt, but do so in different ways: in "The Fear", the soldiers are grappling inwardly with their instincts and the demands of being soldiers. The emotional weight to survive, at the loss of comrades or their ideal, creates an undercurrent of moral conflict.

In "The Hero," there is clear guilt in the calculated lie told by the officer to the grieving mother. It lays bare a disconnection between the glory of the narrative of war and the bitter truth about it, and makes one confront ethical compromises that go into maintaining morale and safeguarding illusions about society.

Courage and Humanity

Gibson's "The Fear" emphasizes that the best of courage in the face of overwhelming fear is frail. The poem never praises braveness, but shows soldiers as a human creature consumed by this natural and inevitable fear of death. This focus on humanity tears away the romantic varnish of war to show the emotional cost.

Conversely, Sassoon's "The Hero" depicts a type of bravery that is found in the recognition of vulnerability. The hero's fear and failure do not take away from his humanity but rather make the tragedy of his sacrifice all the more poignant. By exposing the chasm between what society expects and what the soldier lives, Sassoon expands the concept of heroism to include the unvarnished truth of human weakness.

Compassion and Death

Compassion takes various forms in these poems. In "The Fear," it manifests as a mutual vulnerability of the soldiers that binds them in their pain. The poem suggests that even in the dehumanizing conditions of war, the shared burden of fear fosters a collective sense of humanity.

In "The Hero, compassion is ironic. The lieutenant's lie to the widowed mother can be depicted as merciful, and yet it makes clear what lies between the front lines and the home front, where death becomes not the physical end but a big emotional and moral event as it raises questions about death's meaning and consequences.

#Compare Ivor Gurney's The Target with Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est. What are some notable similarities and differences between these two war poets and their poetry?

Ivor Gurney's The Target and Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est are both strong poems that meet head-on the harsh realities of war, but do it in different styles and from different perspectives.

Similarities:

1)Anti-War Sentiments: These two poems express a sense of anti-war. Both Gurney and Owen reject the glorification of war and its impact on soldiers. In The Target, Gurney depicts a scenario in which soldiers have been reduced to targets- something they are vulnerable to. Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est critiques the romanticized notion of dying for one's country, especially in the context of the old Latin phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (It is sweet and proper to die for one's country).

2)Graphic Imagery: Both poets utilize imagery that is vivid and frequently disturbing to describe the horror of war. The vivid descriptions of soldiers having a hard time putting on their gas masks during the chemical attack in Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est, and Gurney's The Target, through images of soldiers as targets and the dehumanizing aspect of violence in war, convey the harsh realities of war.

3)Focus on the Soldier's Experience: These two poems focus on individual experience rather than abstract political or strategic concerns. It focuses on the psychological and physical trauma that soldiers experienced, and both poets draw upon their personal experiences in World War I to shape their views of the war.

Differences:

1)Tone and Mood: In Gurney's The Target, the tone is darker and resigned and has an air of inevitability. It also points out the futility and senselessness of war where a soldier's fate seems sealed in becoming a "target" for enemy fire. The mood is bleak and almost silent despair.

Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est: Owen has used a more urgent, visceral tone to describe the horror of war. The vivid descriptions of the gas attack and the suffering of the soldier are so shocking and outrageous. The mood is more intense and filled with outrage against the false glorification of war.

2)Structure and Style: Gurney's The Target: Gurney's poem is shorter and mysterious, and it employs the metaphor of a target for the soldier's vulnerability. It is brief and contains limited words; the shortness creates a chilling effect because the reader is left to guess at the complete meaning of the soldier's fate.

Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est: Owen's poem is more complex in structure and longer, using a closely controlled meter and rhyme scheme that contrasts with the chaotic imagery he describes. The shift in tone at the end of the poem—from the graphic descriptions of war to the bitter denunciation of the "old Lie"—adds to its emotional power.

3)Personal Experience and Perspective:

Gurney: Gurney's soldierly experience was intertwined with his personal mental health struggles, and his poems often reflect a more inner, psychological exploration of war on the individual. In The Target, the plight of the soldier is framed less in terms of physical horror and more in terms of his isolation and futility in war.

Owen: On the contrary, Owen is famous for his detailed, exterior description of the brutalities of war, especially on its physical level. In Dulce et Decorum Est, he famously criticizes the patriotic narratives that hide the horrors of war, focusing instead on the outward physical sufferings of soldiers.

Although Gurney and Owen use impressive imagery in condemning the awfulness of war, in The Target Gurney is far more oblique and reflexive in presenting the dehumanizing effects and certainty of death about soldiers, while Owen, in his Dulce et Decorum Est, is almost confrontational and graphic using vivid imagery in suffering to criticize the idea of war's nobility. Both poems contribute to the global discourse on the traumatic after-effects of war, and yet they both do that in their own unique yet resonant ways.

References: 

Gurney, Ivor. The Target. The Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney, edited by P.J. Kavanagh, Carcanet Press, 1982, p. 109.

Owen, Wilfred. Dulce et Decorum Est. The Poems of Wilfred Owen, edited by Jon Stallworthy, Norton, 1983, p. 56.