This lesson contains 14 slides, with interactive quizzes and text slides.
Lesson duration is: 40 min
Items in this lesson
5. Things that Make a Soldier Great
Slide 1 - Slide
Let's continue
The Things that Make a Soldier Great
by Edgar A. Guest
(1918)
Slide 2 - Slide
About the author
Edgar A. Guest
1881-1959
'The People's Poet'
born in England, moved to the US
Slide 3 - Slide
Let's read the text together
Slide 4 - Slide
Look at stanza 2
Discuss in groups and express in your own words:
What is Guest trying to say here?
Slide 5 - Slide
Answer
It is not the country or the king or the flag that make a soldier want to fight, but it is when his family and/or children are in danger that he wants to fight
Slide 6 - Slide
Which other sentences in the poem give out the same message?
Slide 7 - Mind map
The following sentences:
"The golden thread of courage isn't linked to castle dome
But to the spot, where'er it be—the humble spot called home."
"He sees his children smile at him, he hears the bugle call,
And only death can stop him now—he's fighting for them all."
Slide 8 - Slide
In The Soldier, Brooke believes that soldiers fight and die for:
A
Themselves
B
Their country
C
Their families
Slide 9 - Quiz
In The Things that Make a Soldier Great, Guest believes that soldiers die for:
A
Themselves
B
Their country
C
Their families
Slide 10 - Quiz
Notes on the 5 war poems
The Soldier (pro / positive) was written in 1914: beginning of the war --> positive, naïve
In Flanders Fields(1915) is also rather positive, patriotic. It's about death, but also about war heroes.
Dulce et Decorum Est & Anthem for Doomed Youth(anti / negative) were written in 1917: during the war --> more realistic, horrors of the war were out
Things that Make a Soldier Great (1918) is more about soldiers on a personal level
Slide 11 - Slide
Most Negative
Most Positive
Things that make a soldier Great
In Flanders Fields
Dulce et decorum Est
The Soldier
Anthem for Doomed Youth
Slide 12 - Drag question
What is the difference between Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen and John McCrae on the one hand, and Edgar Guest on the other hand?
Slide 13 - Open question
Important difference between the poets
Owen, Brooke and McCrae all took part in the war themselves. Guest never took part in it.