WWI Poetry I

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 6

6V War Poetry Project 

Discussing poetry of the first World War

Introduction

• Watch the following clip
• Find out what started World War I

Presentations schedule

Group 1: 10 October  (+0,5)

Group 2: 17 October (+0,3)

Group 3: 31 October

Group 4: 7 November

Group 5: 15 November

Form groups asap and pick a date (first come, first served)

Wilfred Owen

(1893 - 1918)

 'All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful'.

Born in Shropshire

Failed to get into university

Worked as a lay assistent to a vicar in Reading

Worked as an English tutor in France when the war broke out

Enlisted in 1915

Battle of the Somme 1917, came back with shellshock, Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh. Met Sassoon there.

Died one week before the armistace. 

Siegfried Sassoon

(1886 - 1967)

Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.

www.theguardian.com

www.bbc.co.uk

ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk

www.poetryfoundation.org

www.poetryfoundation.org

Next week

Read the poems in your booklet. Make sure you understand them. In your group of three, discuss and decide who will present on which poem (one by Owen, one by Sassoon and one by one of the female poets).

Any questions? Just ask, either by sending me a message or talk to me in class.

In class, we will start watching the film Regeneration.