This thinking Activity given by our Professor veidehi Ma'am. Here i discuss about the what is war poetry.
1) What is your understanding of war poetry?
Reminding us of William Wordsworth's (1770-1850) dictum that "poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings", Jon Stallworthy (1935-2014) asserted that..
there can be no area of human experience that has generated a wider range of powerful feelings than war: hope and fear; exhilaration; hatred – not only for the enemy, but also for generals, politicians, and war-profiteers; love – for fellow soldiers, for women and children left behind, for country (often) and cause (occasionally).
During the Great War, poetry had a currency that it lacks in the early twenty-first century. Newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, anthologies, and individual collections featured poems by combatants and non-combatants, by men and by women, at "home" or near the front lines. Poetry seemed a natural outlet for the intense emotions generated by the war and its range challenges the concept that only those with direct experience of fighting, i.e. soldiers, were allowed to write about war. The Great War was a total war and no one was left untouched by it. Suffering, mourning, patriotism, pity, and love were universally, if not equally, experienced. Thus "war poetry" is as all-encompassing as total war itself.
War poetry is a literary genre that developed during the period of the world wars. The term was coined by Randall Jarrell in his essay “The Literature of War” (1961). Jarrell defines war poetry as “a poem that has as its theme war and that is written during or about a war. List of War Poets in English Literature- It’s important to study War poetry because it gives us insight into the actual scenario of war during World War I and II. Most of the poets of that time considered themselves as soldiers as well as poets. They used to write poets in their leisure time and express their emotions through writings.
What is a War Poet?
A War poet is a poet who participates in a war and writes about their experiences or non-combatants who writes poems about war. These war poets are also called trench poets.
The term war poetry chiefly denotes the poetry written under the direct impact of World War I. It is also called anti-romantic. Earlier also we had war poets but after World War I these kinds of poet and poetry comes under the genre called ‘War Poetry‘.
List of War poet's
- Rupert Brooke
- Siegfried Sassoon
- Wilfred Owen
- Robert Graves
- Edward Thomas
- Isaac Rosenberg.
The theme of War Poetry:
- The loss of innocence
- Brotherhood and Relationship
- The Horror of war
- Disillusionment with religion
- Nature
- Irrationality of war
- Emotional and feelings
2.) Note down the difference of all the War Poets.
Ans,
Wilfred Owen: Owens poems talk about the truth of war. The poems focus on the fear of war, horror, sacrifice, glory and questioning life’s purpose.
Rupert Brooke: Brooke poems talk about the Love, Death and Immortality.
Wilfred Wilson Gibson: As a published poet, however, Gibson was driven to imagine and represent the realities of ordinary British soldiers.Adopting the voices of both soldiers and civilians, the poems explore themes of guilt, madness, injury, death, and sense of identity.
Siegfried Sassoon: Siegfried Sassoon is one of the most famous of all the war poets. He was a soldier in WWI and his poem is based on his own experience in the war.
Ivor Gurney: Ivor Gurney was one of the most famous english poets. Gurney is known both as a poet and composer. he often contrasted the horrors of the front line with the beauty and tranquillity of his native English landscape - these themes were explored in the 2012 musical play A Soldier and a Maker.
3.) Compare any two poems with reference to the subject, style of writing and patriotism.
Ans,
1.) The Soldier - RUPERT BROOKE
The poem "The Soldier" is one of English poet Rupert Brooke's (1887–1915) most evocative and poignant poems—and an example of the dangers of romanticizing World War I, comforting the survivors but downplaying the grim reality. Written in 1914, the lines are still used in military memorials today.
Subject of Poem:
You've most likely heard the phrase 'Home is where the heart is.' But you've probably never heard someone express the sentiment quite as literally as Brooke did in 'The Soldier.' In his sonnet, the poet ties his entire being, physical and mental, to England, making the two practically inseparable even in death.
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
The first line of the poem lays down its opening gambit, implying that people need not grieve the speaker's death for reasons that are about to follow.This poem is deeply patriotic about England—and it's this patriotism that is behind the speaker's logic. He asserts that, when he dies in a far off "foreign field," his fallen body will in turn make wherever he dies a part of England too.Referring to his corpse as being “richer dust” is an interesting choice of words here and perhaps a reference to the phrase used during a funeral service. The classic “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” line. This idea that his body is simply made of dust isn’t necessarily totally symbolic. After all, we are primarily a carbon-based life form!
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.
The dust metaphor continues into the fifth line where the poet talks about how that dust was formed and shaped by England. The concept that he is trying to put across is that he is the very embodiment of England, of course, the wider suggestion is that any soldier who dies for their country fulfills that same criterion. That soldiers are “shaped” by England and so when they die overseas they act almost like a seed, spreading Englishness.
The final three lines of the Octave are full of patriotic notions. They really create an image of England that is fantastic. This is done with the evocation of the natural world. Talking of flowers, the air, and rivers, these all help to create the image of England being a beautiful place. Through doing that the narrator is able to infer that a soldier can help to take the very fragments that helped to create that beauty and transport it to a foreign country. This act, if it were real, would of course be very noble
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
The use of language in this stanza is really interesting. It talks of hearts and minds in an attempt to personify England. The reason for doing this is because people have a vested interest in people. If you can humanize a country you can increase its value in the eyes of people.Whilst not referencing England directly its use is very deliberate, it puts the thought of eternity into your mind so you associate that with England. This poem has a sense that England will prevail, that our sovereignty is eternal.
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
The final line is very clever. It uses really positive language in order to infer that dying in the field of battle ends up with you being at peace. It results in you ending up in heaven. Not just any heaven though, an English heaven.
Style of Writing:
The Soldier is similar to a Petrarchan sonnet (or Italian Sonnet if you prefer.) This means it has 14 lines which are separated into stanzas. The rhyming pattern for this is not typical of a Petrarchan sonnet, which usually has a ABBAABBA CDECDE pattern.
Patriotism:
Brooke’s The Soldier is the first of the sonnets to achieve fame, is still probably the most famous of the group, a poem that has become one of the standard pieces of patriotic rhetoric in English literature. “If I should die, think only this of me,” it begins; the speaker will die, it is to be understood, and the poem goes on to describe what will become of this soldier after his death.
The body of the soldier, whom “England bore, shaped, made-aware,” becomes dust, an English dust, enriching the foreign dust in which it is buried, so that “there’s some corner of a foreign field/That is for ever England.” The poem is Platonic rather than Christian, for the soldier’s body does not await resurrection but becomes “A pulse in the eternal mind” that “Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given.” The death imagined in the first stanza occurs in the last stanza.
We are presented with a cleansed soul, “this heart, all evil shed away,/a pulse in the eternal mind.” The life of the soldier has been distilled to a life of goodness, and that life is owed to England. In the end, “The Soldier” celebrates the idea of self-sacrifice: according to the dead soldier, it is an honor to die for one’s country, and no thought should be given to personal desire, because the desire of the soldier and the desire of the country should be one.
2.) The Hero - Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon, born in 1886, was in service on the first day of the First World War. Although his initial poetry revealed a lot of Romantic influences, the experiences in the trenches got to him and, similarly to Owen, introduced a new sense of realism into his poetry. Sassoon himself was marked for rather reckless yet heroic actions, such as capturing a German trench in the Hindeburg-line singlehanded. But rather than report this victory, he sat down and read poetry before returning to his own camp. These kind of actions garnered him respect among his fellow soldiers, but betrayed an almost suicidal intent on advancement.
Subject of Poem:
In the poem 'Hero', Sassoon shows the reader a mother receiving the news of her son's death from one of his comrades. The very first sentence, 'Jack fell as he'd have wished' reveals a delusion on not only the mother's side but also on society's. No one wishes to die violently, especially not in a war, and believing that they do makes parents send their children off blindly. By capitalizing 'Mother', Sassoon makes her not only the soldier's mother but also makes her a personification of Britain and its soldiers her children. Therefore it is Britain that says this sentence and deludes itself about its children. By folding up the letter sent to her, she resigns herself to the lie she has been fed, saying 'the Colonel writes so nicely'. By wrapping up a horrible truth in nice words, the Colonel manages to lull the mother into a false sense of comfort. However, the mother has a 'tired voice', as if everything up to that point has only been a long struggle, the inevitable end of which almost brings a kind of relief to her for which she feels guilty. Her voice becomes a 'choke; because in accepting the version of her son's death she has received, she prevents herself from speaking out.
She half looked up. "We mothers are so proud of our dead soldiers." Then her face was bowed.'
As the above two lines show, the poem is written in rhyming couplets which is very effective in bringing across moral lessons quickly. The mother's statement about her feelings leads to her 'bowed' head, to her taking a submissive pose as if she has been defeated. The archetypal picture of a mother defending her children is here undermined and leads to her subsuming herself with all the other mothers. Not only do the soldiers become faceless pawns in a game. This style also possibly mimics the loud headlines on newspapers, shouting propaganda at the reader, trying to convince them of a justification of the War. Sassoon was a big critic of the way propaganda was falsely influencing the people, and the rest of the poem serves to underline the falseness behind official communication.
The third stanza is written from the soldier's point of view, thinking of 'Jack'. By putting the name between quotation marks, Sassoon de-personifies him and makes him a stocktype for all soldiers. On the other hand, he himself was known as 'Mad Jack' for his reckless actions and the description of 'cold-footed, useless swine' may therefore reflect on himself as well. All of them were terrified and unaware of what they were supposed to do, which led to the 'panicked' running and neglecting the 'mine' that had 'blown [him] to small bits'. The supposed message he has given to the Mother, is clearly different from the stark reality which is given to the reader in these lines. Not only did Jack try to injure himself in order to be 'sent home', he had died alone and miserable rather than a hero's death, admired by all. 'no one seemed to care' for the boys dying every single day. As a final rhyming couplet, this is extremely strong.
'And no one seemed to care,Except that lonely woman with white hair.'
It is very similar to the propaganda shouts, calling for men to stand up to defend their mothers, sisters and wives. The reality that is never explained is the mourning for these women, who are left behind alone, since all the men are off to war, and ageing with sorrow. Sassoon is considered one of the great War Poets because of the reality of the War he reveals in his poetry. Similarly to Owen, a close friend of his, he reveals the disconnect between the truth in the trenches and the truth at home. His poem leaves it perfectly in the middle where the blame could possibly lie. Both the soldier and the Colonel are lying, but so are the newspapers, both slowly making it impossible for the other to reveal the truth.
Style of Writings:
Written in iambic pentameter, ‘The Hero’ comprises three stanzas of six lines length largely made up of rhyming couplets, save the first four lines of the second stanza, which have an alternating rhyme scheme. Rhyming couplets, of course, are particularly effective in relaying neat epigrams or moral statements. The simplicity of the rhyme scheme perhaps apes the newspaper poetry of the time, which often went in for sentimental attitudes about the heroism of the British ‘boys’ and their sacrifice.
Patriotism:
"I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it." — Siegfried Sassoon
I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.
“We mothers are so proud / Of our dead soldiers.’ Then her face bowed.”: The mother speaks as if for all British soldiers: perhaps the consolation that she finds in doing so is in subsuming herself in the collective loss of all the mothers of the nation. At any rate, these words do seem more sentimental than authentic: their clichéd expression helping to repress, perhaps, the great grief of the woman.
“…and how, at last, he died, / Blown to small bits.”: the grisly contrast of the soldier’s death to the heroism supposed in the poem’s title is clear. ‘Jack’ is “blown to bits” by a shell or a mine: the plosive sound, ‘b’ echoing the sound of the explosive and its effect on the unfortunate soldier. The halting rhythm of the line, with pauses following each stressed word (“how”, “last”, “died”), lends a sense of inevitability to Jack’s end. this lines we seens some patriotism elements.
Both poem are similar in his poem theme and his whole concept of poetry.
4.) Do you find any such regional poem/movies/web series/songs which can be compared to any one of the poems given here. Also, give a proper explanation of the similarity.
Here I compare with Bollywood song नैना अश्क़ ना हो with Rupert Brookes poem The Soldier.
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
Naina Ashq Na Ho lyrics in Hindi & English from ‘Holiday – A Soldier Is Never Off Duty’, featuring Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha in lead roles. Directed by A R Murugadoss, the music has been composed by Pritam Chakraborty. The lyrics of Ashq Na Ho has been penned by Irshad Kamil. The song has been sung Arijit Singh.
यूँ ना लम्हा लम्हा मेरी याद में
होके तन्हा तन्हा मेरे बाद में
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
माना कल से होंगे हम दूर
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
नैना लौटा आने वाले साल जो
मेरी वर्दी बोले मेरा हाल तो
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
ये समझना, मैं हूँ मजबूर
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
बीते हुए लम्हों के तारे गिनूंगा मैं
आके तुझे ख़्वाबों में तेरे मिलूंगा मैं
जब कभी हल्की हल्की बरखा आए
जब कभी दिल भी यूँही भर से जाए
जब कभी हल्की हल्की बरखा आए
उस पल झोंका इक बनके आऊंगा मैं
उस पल ज़ुल्फ़ें पलकें दामन
छू जाऊँगा मैं
ओ तेरी चूड़ी नग्में गए जो मेरे
तेरी पलकों पे हो साए जो मेरे
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
आंसू करते हमें कमज़ोर
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
तेरे लिए सांसें आए
तेरी लिए जाए, जाए रे… जाए रे
तेरे लिए सांसें आए
तेरी लिए जाए, जाए रे… जाए रे
रब्बा…रब्बा बैरी से बिछड़े
जाने किसने बनाए
हाय रे, हाय रे, हाय रे
दूरी तड़पाये
मेरे बाद चाहे आए याद मेरी
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
नैना अश्क़ ना हो…अश्क़ ना हो हो
हो हो…
ओ लिखी खत में मैंने तुझे बात जो
सोना रख के तकिये तले रात को
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
ये जुदाई भी है दस्तूर
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
नैना लौटा आने वाले साल जो
मेरी वर्दी बोले मेरा हाल तो
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
ये समझना, मैं हूँ मजबूर
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
Poem: The Soldier
The Soldier BY RUPERT BROOKE
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Comparison:
The Soldier poem and नैना अश्क़ ना हो song both are similar in one thing it's a soldier love for his nation and this song also suggest that how soldier going from his house to and die for his motherland.
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.
नैना लौटा आने वाले साल जो
मेरी वर्दी बोले मेरा हाल तो
नैना अश्क़ ना हो
If I die in the war, I want to be remembered in a particular way. Think of how the far-off land on which I die will have a small piece of England forever. That earth will be enriched by my dead body, because my body is made from dirt born in England. And the this song and this line say same thing that is how soldier think of his motherland first then his family and other things.so that way this poem and song are similar. This all things say that how soldier love his motherland. According to me this both Poems are similar in much things.
This is whole information about the what is war poetry.
Thank you
