Literature War Poetry

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Today:

• war poetry introduction
• war poetry assignment

War Poetry

The Great War

What do you know?

What do you know about World War I?

WW I in bullet points

• 1914: WW1 starts after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria 
• Two major factions: Allied Powers (France/Britain/Russia) VS Central Powers (Germany/Italy/Austria/Ottoman Empire) and they basically used Belgium as their battleground.
  
• Advanced technological and chemical warfare: machine guns, tanks, airplanes, telephones, field radios, & mustard or chlorine gas.
• Most of it was fought in trenches, with little ground gained or lost in each battle.
  
• It was a world war because fighting also took place in colonized parts of the world such as Africa, Asia & the Middle East. Later on (1917), the USA would join the war as well, which was a defining moment.
  
• By the time it ended in 1918, the Allied Powers had won, but Europe was in tatters and the blame was placed on the losing side, in particular Germany.
  
• The total number of  casualties in World War I was about 40 million, both from directly dying in the war or later on of injury or illness (Spanish Flu pandemic), the highest count of any war to that date.

The First World War was the first major conflict to be captured on film. The public flocked to watch footage from the battlefields: a 1916 documentary about the Battle of the Somme was seen in cinemas by an estimated 20 million people in its first six weeks of release.

 Now, 100 years later, Peter Jackson’s extraordinary film brings the war back to life, using the latest digital technology to render this century-old footage colour.

What effect does the transition from black and white to colour have on the impact of the footage? 

Why look at war poetry?

• All the world ground to a halt when the war broke out. 
• As young men signed up, they were optimistic: it would soon be over and Britain would be victorious. 
• They thought it would be glorious to die for 'King and country' and few believed that they actually would. 
• Their insights into the war and its consequences is what inspired their poems, many of which would be read by and published for the general public back home. In their works we see not only this initial hope, but the true words of men locked in constant and hopeless battle.

The two poets we will look at today are Rupert Brooke & John McCrae. Both of them sadly did not live to see the end of the war. 

Rupert Brooke - The Soldier

• About what happened when the soldier died while abroad.
• It is full of positivity and seems to glorify the idea of a person dying for their country.
• Became very popular during and after the war.
• England will forever be great and where an English soldier dies shall forever be part of their great nation.
• Brooke foreshadowed the vast numbers of soldiers whose bodies would remain buried and unknown in 'foreign fields'.
• Religion is central to the second half, expressing the idea that the soldier will awake in heaven as a reward for dying in the war.
• Filled with patriotic language. 
• Rupert Brooke ironically became a soldier buried in a 'foreign field' himself.

Rupert Brooke - The Soldier (p 5)

Assignment:

1. In groups prepare the poem assigned to you. (The Soldier / In Flanders Fields)

• Make sure you understand the background information (google words you don't now and write them down)
• Use litcharts to read the poem and the explanation of the poem. 
• Answer the questions about the poem.

2. The next step will be: exchange information about eachother's poem with another classmate.    

3. Final step: check with class if everything is clear. 

Now you've read 2 war poems, compare its contents. Which one do you appreciate more? Why so?

Literature - Poem: Does it matter?

War Poets

Sigfried Sassoon & Wilfred Owen

Propaganda

Siegfried Sassoon was born on 8 September 1886 and died on 1 September 1967 in Heytesbury, Great Britain. He studied at Cambridge but never graduated there. He enlisted after the war had started and left for France in May 1915. Sassoon turned out to be a courageous soldier and got wounded twice for which he received the honour of the Military Cross. Despite of that, he became more and more angry about the needless loss of young lives and the severe conditions these young soldiers had to endure. After getting wounded a third time, he was sent to England where he started writing poetry about his experiences. That's when he met Wilfred Owen whose work he started promoting fairly soon after. After some debate he did return to France to fight until the end of the War. His written work named Counter- Attack which was published shortly after the War impressed many who read it. The bitterness it portrayed was something not many had dared to write and/ or publish.

Propaganda played a big role during this war. Because of pamflets like the one that's shown and many others, young boys were being temped (and felt obliged) to serve their country. What they often didn't realise is that they could die in the trenches. 

Show video and after reading it again together (or reading along) explain the sarcasm in this poem, especially because of society's reactions to the soldiers they've sent to war themselves (see picture slide 4)

01:08

Wat denk je dat het doel is van dit gedicht?

Wat is de 'toon' van dit gedicht?

1. blij
2. verdrietig
3. sarcastisch
4. overdreven

The sarcasm explained

Questions 

1. Dit gedicht is een sarcastisch gedicht. Leg uit waarom (minimaal 20 woorden)

2. Wat zou de schrijver hebben willen bereiken met het schrijven van dit gedicht? Leg uit. (minimaal 30 woorden)

3. Zou jij je geroepen voelen om deel te nemen aan een oorlog voor je Vaderland? Leg uit waarom wel of niet. (minimaal 30 woorden)

Life in the trenches

Watch this video, take notes, summarize its contents and insert your summary in the slide after the video.

Summary of Life as a soldier in World War I

Choose one of these assignments for next literature class -you can work in pairs-: For next class.

1. Find 2 contrasting English war poems. Copy these poems in a word document : write down what these poems mean, by whom they’ve been written, from which wars they stem and why you think they offer opposite views, hand it in via Teams before next class. 
2. Choose one war poem you think to be impressive. Write it down on an A3 and make it into a poster by creating a fitting background. Take a photo and hand it in via Teams before next class.
3. Write a war poem yourself. It does not have to be on WWI. Explain the contents of it. Do so in a work document and hand it in via Teams before next class.

You're work will not be shared in class unless you have given permission to do so. 

Anthem for Doomed Youth- W. Owen

Anthem for Doomed Youth - BY WILFRED OWEN

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

      — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

      Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 

      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

WWI - Anti-war poem

• WWI-  around 17 million people died worldwide. 
• Poem Anthem for Doomed Youth written by WWI combatant Wilfred Owen while recovering from the trauma of battle
• War is a hellish and a futile waste of human life
• Protest poem—subverting the usual use of “anthem” as a symbol of nationalism (that is, taking undue pride in your home nation) into an anti-war message.

(anthem = special song for a particular group of people, such as the national anthem)

www.litcharts.com

Sonnet

A fourteen-line poem with a fixed rhyme scheme and meter

Anthem for Doomed Youth = a Petrarchan sonnet made up of one octave (8 lines) and one sestet (6 lines)

Volta (=turn in thought) in line 9

Octave = On the battle field

Sestet = At home

Rhyme Scheme ABAB CDCD EFFE GG

Meter: Iambic Pentamenter

Meter: A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates the rhythm of lines of poetry. The units of meter are called feet. 

Feet have different stress patterns. 

Iamb = unstressed + stressed syllable e.g. deFINE, beLIEVE

Penta = 5 

Iambic pentameter = 5 feet (foot = 2 syllables), so 10 syllable in total unstressed/stressed unstressed/stressed etc. (5 times)

Title

Anthem for Doomed Youth

It’s a patriotic/ religious song for the dead soldiers who were doomed from the start in this dreadful and futile war

Find examples of

1. Assonance = repetition of the same vowel sound in nearby words, in any given position in the word
2. Consonance = repetition of the same consonant sound in nearby words, in any given position in the word
3. Alliteration = repetition of the initial stressed consonant sound in nearby words
4. Simile = comparison with "as"/"like" (an explicit comparison)
5. Rhetorical question = a question asked to make a statement, one that does not require an answer
6. Personification = a non-human thing is given a human attribute
7. Enjambment = a line of poetry carrying over into the next line, no end-stop in a line
8. Imagery = descriptive words appealing to the five senses (sound, sight, hearing, taste, touch)
9. Onomatopoeia = word that makes the sound it describes (e.g. buzz, tweet)
10. Symbols for funeral rituals

Literary devices used 

Assonance:  the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line. 

For example, the sound of /o/ in “No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells” and “Only the monstrous anger of the guns.”

Consonance:the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line. 

For example, the sound of /l/ in “The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells.”

Alliteration: the repetition of initial (= first letter) stressed consonant sounds in the same line in quick succession. 

For example, the sound of /r/ in “Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle”; the sound of /d/ “And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds” and the sound of /g/ in “Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes”.

 

Literary devices used 

Enjambment:  a thought in verse that does not come to an end at a line break; instead, it continues to the next line; no end-stop at the end of the line, but the thought carries over onto the next line

“Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes -> no end-stop here

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.”

Imagery: words used to appeal to the five senses (sound, sight, hearing, taste, smell)

 “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle”; 

“Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes” and “Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.”

Rhetorical Question:a statement said or asked to make the point clear without expecting any answers. 

Line 1: “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”

Literary devices used 

Simile:  used to compare an object or a person with something else to make the meanings clear/a comparison with AS or LIKE  Line 1: “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle.” Here, the poet compares dead soldiers to cattle.

Personification:  to give human qualities to non-living objects. 

Guns are personified in the second line of the poem, “only the monstrous anger of the guns,” as if the guns are humans that can express anger.

Symbols: one thing represents something beyond literal meaning/another deeper meaning thing 

In Anthem for Doomed Youth symbols for funeral rituals are: 

Anthem (religious song during church service and song of a country to express patriotic feeling), Passing bells (bell tolled immediately after death), orisons (prayers), mockeries (absurd or worthless version of something), prayers, bells, mourning, choirs, candles, pall (coffin cloth), drawing-down of blinds

Literary devices used 

Symbols: one thing represents something beyond literal meaning/another deeper meaning thing 

In Anthem for Doomed Youth symbols for funeral rituals are: 

Anthem (religious song during church service and song of a country to express patriotic feeling), 

Passing bells (bell tolled immediately after death), 

Orisons (prayers), 

Mockeries (absurd or worthless version of something), 

Prayers, bells, mourning, choirs, candles, pall (coffin cloth), drawing-down of blinds

Onomatopoeia: the word describes the sound (e.g. buzz, shriek, tweet)

Stuttering rapid rattle

Wilfred Owen - Dulce et Decorum est

The poem centers around a group of exhausted soldiers having to flee from a mustard gas attack.

1. While listening pay attention to the tone of the poem. What can you say about this?

2. Focuses on the Latin phrase: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. What is Owen's message do you think?

Wilfred Owen - Dulce et Decorum est

1. While listening pay attention to the tone of the poem. What can you say about this?
2. Focuses on the Latin phrase: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. What is Owen's message do you think?