World War One Poets: Brooke, Owen, Sassoon and the Road to War

World War One Poets

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Rupert Brooke
Wilfred Owen
Siegfried Sassoon

The Road to War

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A .... . .. . . .
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Via Solferino, N. 28
MILANO
Per tutti gli articoli e illustrazioni è riservata la proprietà letteraria o artistica, secondo le leggi e i trattati internazionali.
Centesimi 10 il numero.
Anno XVI. - Num. 27.
5 . 12 Luglio 1914.
L'assassinio a Serajevo dell'arciduca Francesco Ferdinando erede del trono d'Austria, e di sua moglie.
(Diszano di A. Beltrame). "

• On 28th June 1914, the heir to
  Austria-Hungary, the Archduke
  Franz Ferdinand, was
  assassinated at Sarajevo. This
  was the trigger that led to the
  First World War
• Rivalries between the Great
  Powers had been growing for
  decades.
• A diplomatic crisis escalated
  quickly into belligerence
• Within a month, battle lines and
  alliances had been fixed: there
  was no going back

War Involvement

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• The War involved all the most important economic powers of the
  world
• On one side were Britain, France and Russia, and on the other,
  Germany and Austria-Hungary, with many other countries in
  support
• Belgium was neutral, but invasion by Germany led to war, since
  Britain guaranteed Belgian neutrality

BRITONS
"WANTS
YOU
M
JOIN YOUR COUNTRY'S ARMY!
GOD SAVE THE KING
Reproduced by permission of LONDON OPINION
LONDON
COME LAD
SLIP ACROSS AND HELP

Over by Christmas?

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• Initially, there was great euphoria on both sides and thousands of
  men volunteered to fight
• There was a general feeling that it would be over by Christmas
  1914 and everyone would be back home safely
• The First World War, known at the time as the 'War To End All
  Wars', finally ended on 11th November 1918

laily
Mail
Dally Net SALE Six Times as Large as That of Any Penny London Morning Journal Except "THE TIMES"
9370 2311
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1914
LONDON
MANCHESTER
PARIS
NO 5,848
ONE HALFPENNY
CHRISTMAS TRUCE AT FRONT
STORY TOLD IN
LETTERS FROM
THE TRENCHES
TO DAILY MAIL
SNOWBALLS
AND JOKES
WITH THE FOE
EVERY day the Daily Mail
Is pleased lo pubilak
Jeffers which have been
sent by aoidiers serving
with the Expeditionary
Force and sollers with the

Conditions of War

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• Within a few months, the Western Front had settled into trench
  warfare, with neither side gaining any significant advantage for years
• Conditions on all the Fronts were terrible and casualties enormous
• Modern technology added to the horror of the war: the noise the huge
  guns made in France could be heard in England
• Britain introduced conscription in 1916 because of the huge casualty
  rate
  JA

The War at Home

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• In Britain, many people had no
  conception of the horror of the
  War and many others did not
  want to know
• Propaganda, mainly through
  the use of posters, made men
  feel guilty if they did not go
  and fight "for King and
  Country"
• Britain had been socially and
  politically divided before 1914:
  War united the country against
  Germany

Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War ?
15
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Four Years Later

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• More than 16 million people, including 9 million soldiers, had died
  during the War
• The Empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia had
  disappeared and national borders were redrawn
• A deep feeling of loss and disillusion permeated every aspect of
  society: the world they knew had changed beyond recognition
  1

The Pity of War - the Poetry

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• The euphoria at the outbreak of war was echoed in the poetry,
  which was optimistic about a quick and successful campaign
• Poetry also reflected a sentimental view of an English way of life
  that had to be defended against 'barbarity'
• As the war continued and optimism gave way to pessimism, many
  poets became both bitter and cynical as they witnessed the
  destruction around them
  S

Rupert Brooke 1

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• Brooke came from a privileged background, studied at Cambridge, and
  moved in literary circles that included Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury
  Group
• His early poems show a deep love for the English countryside and an
  idyllic English way of life
• His enthusiasm at the outbreak of war, common to many, led him to
  volunteer in order to safeguard 'English values'

Rupert Brooke 2

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• In 1915 he published a book of poems, known as the War
  Sonnets, which focus on optimism and idealism, but also
  contain a certain appreciation of the realities of war
• That year his regiment left for the Gallipoli Campaign in
  Turkey, but on the way
  he fell ill and died
  in Greece on a hospital
  ship
• He is sometimes seen
  as an apologist for the
  war, but if he had lived,
  he might have changed
  his mind and written
  a different type of poetry

Rupert Brooke - The Soldier

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YOUR COUNTRY'S CALL
Isn't this worth fighting for?
ENLIST NOW

• Brooke's most famous poem is
  written as a Petrarchan sonnet
  and is full of alliteration,
  consonance and assonance as he
  recreates an ideal, perfect, rural
  England
• The speaker says that if he dies in
  the war, then he has died fighting
  for a just cause - the preservation
  of his homeland
• England is depicted as a generous
  and loving mother who has given
  so much to her children that it is
  now their turn to give back

Wilfred Owen 1

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• Owen was born into a middle-class family and, because of financial
  problems, was unable to go to university
• He had a strong Christian faith and for a time was assistant to a
  vicar, following that with a period as a language tutor to a family in
  France
• He returned to England in 1915 and enlisted
• He was killed in France and weak hafare the War ended

Wilfred Owen 2

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• Owen was deeply affected by
  the horrors he witnessed at the
  Western Front and quickly
  became critical of the War in
  his poetry
• He was wounded in April 1917
  and sent to a hospital for shell
  shock victims in Scotland,
  where he met Siegfried
  Sassoon
• Sassoon was impressed with
  Owen's poetry and encouraged
  him to write his best poems
  over the next few months

Wilfred Owen - Exposure

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• This poem demonstrates Owen's mastery of structure and
  language and is composed of eight complex stanzas
• His use of alliteration and consonance, and half-rhymes, place him
  among the greatest poets of the English language
• 'Exposure' is a bitter condemnation of war in all its forms, in
  complete contrast to Brooke's idealism
• Owen's most famous poem is probably "Dulce et decorum est",
  which is also strongly critical of war, like "Exposure"
  MARK. TRAVELS.
  PREALISTIC
  LONDON . CAPE TOWN . BOMBAY . MELBOURNE . TORONTO.
  BY ROYAL COMMAND TO THEIR IMPERIAL MAJESTIES
  KING GEORGE V AND QUEEN MARY

Siegfried Sassoon 1

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• Siegfried Sassoon lived the life of an upper-class English gentleman
  and had already published some rather mediocre poetry before
  the War
• He enlisted immediately and, as the War progressed, he became
  cynical and bitter about it, and his poetry reflects his mood
• His best poetry is a mixture
  of sharp criticism combined
  with bitter humour and satire
• Sassoon is one of the few
  War Poets to survive the war:
  he died in 1967

Siegfried Sassoon 2

• In 1916 he wrote a controversial letter, the "Soldier's
  Declaration", which attacked the reasons for the War and
  which was read out in the House of Commons
• "I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops and can no longer be
  a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and
  unjust. I am ... protesting ... against the political errors and insincerities for
  which the fighting men are being sacrificed"
• Sassoon was saved from court martial because of his
  reputation as a war hero, but sent to hospital in Scotland,
  where he met Wilfred Owen

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Siegfried Sassoon - Suicide in the Trenches

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• The poem is written in three short stanzas with an aabb rhyme, which
  initially hints at a pleasant, happy theme
• However, it becomes a perfect example of Sassoon's use of a bitter
  attack on those who do not want to know what is really going on at the
  Front
• In a few lines, he recreates the horrors of life in the trenches and death
  by suicide in direct, colloquial language.

Observations: Writers' Comments on WW

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• "It's all great fun" - Rupert Brooke in a 1914 letter
• The writer Osbert Sitwell thought it would be "a brief armed
  version of the Olympic Games"
• In 1917 Owen would refer to the war as "seventh hell"
• The English poet Philip Larkin, writing in 1964, believed that there
  was "never such innocence again"