RUPERT BROOKE

‘The Soldier’
Men had to be in the frontier fighting, and women had a propagandistic role. In
the first war world, women were propagandists at the beginning of the war. They
wrote articles, essays, poems defending the need to go to war. This is as an
idealistic view of war is. Men being defenders of their country.
England fought together with France against Germany, and the same was
applied to the second world war.
England was an ally, and they had to go fighting in the continent, main part took
of the war took part in France.
Poets had to be very happy promoting the war, they wanted to defend their
country. They wrote those patriotists poets, like the poem ‘The soldier’. This
poem is very popular because of its patriotism of England. In contrast, there are
poems who were more ironic because they had experienced the war. They wrote
about the reality of the war, an anti-war poetry. Women claimed in their
discourses to defend their country. Women were used as propaganda but also,
they worked in factories, building bombs, etc.
You can approach literature in different positions. The role of women was
different in wars.
As readers, we also must understand that literature is also a political tool.
Literature is an art, but all arts can also be propagandistic. For example, focusing
on men going to war, low social classes, factories, etc. War poetry is one of the
genres in which readers can approach it in a political point of view. You have to
explain the context. We can also decide to be neutral. Any event has different
perspectives. What artists do in literature is them having different responses in
political events. Some of these poets lived through the cruelty of war and they
wrote about it. War poetry, or novel about wars, is a specific literally genre. Very
young men were called to combat, mainly in England and France. The avant-
garde have also reflected the atrocities of war. Guernica is a political painting,
because it reproduces the bombing of Guernica. As a reader, if I write an
essay, I do not need to justify through my interpretation what could
infer what I understand of my approach. Women did not go to war to fight,
but they lost their sons, brothers, husbands and friends. After the impact of war,
they became poets women who claimed the atrocities of the war. They became
activists.
The symbol of the first war world was the poppy, mainly in England, as a sign of
peace.
With all these war discourses, there are also emotional responses and
engagements. We can approach these texts developing these engagements.
Literature is also a tool.
Shelly said
Poem:
One of the most English patriotic texts. Ruper Brooke wrote this poet when he
was young. He wanted to defend his country.
This poem at the end of the first war world was celebrated.
Do you think that the lyrical voice would mind to die as a soldier in the first war
world? No. He absolutely surrenders to defend the country. We know that it is a
‘he’ because of the context, men were the one who went to war.
Who are the addressees of this poem? It could be men, relatives, to comfort
people. The English nation in this case is England. He wanted to encourage
young men to go to the front.
Does the war take place in England, according to the text? No. We know that it
will be in France.
What will happen? Will the speaker be unhappy if he does not return to England
alive? No. Why? Because he died in the name of his country, and because France
will be England since he died there. There is no regret in dying. ‘If I should die,
think only this of me’. This country will be honoured because i am an English
soldier, and my body and my ashes will be buried there. Because of his death
there in France, and his ashes buried there, France will become England. Is a
very optimistic and idealistic discourse of a young man, there is no regret. He
had innocence. Somehow the poet becomes part of the world. It is a metonymy,
a sydecnoque.
Notice the repetition to increase the message.
‘a dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, gave, one, 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.’ England here stands as if it was a mother. The
speaker is praising England as an English soldier. Whatever that soldier is, he is
due to England: his shape, form, his body, his education, etc. Is not only
patriotism, is absolute love for his country.
Second stanza: being a soul will give back all the thoughts by England Given. The
possessive used is personal, as if England was like a mother-like figure. ‘Her’.
If that soldier, ‘If I should die’, I will be buried and that land where I will be buried
will be English, and even the heaven will be English, because my body and my
soul will be there. Exagerated discourse but innocent. It is touching, because
when it was written he did not have experience of war, it is a very idealistic
discourse.
This is a sonnet. It consists of 2 quatrains, first one with 8 lines and the second
stanza with 6 lines.
The poem by Wilfred Owen ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is a contrast with this poem.
In ‘The Soldier’, the poet did not get to experience war, this is why it is a very
propagandistic and idealistic poem. However, in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, the poet
experienced war and went through traumatic events. Idealistic vs Realistic.

Wilfred Owen
‘Dulce et Decorum Est’
Wilfred Owen experienced the real war. It is a very modernist poem because is
full of visual imaginary. This poem is ironic and is a discourse to the soldiers. It is
very naturalistic and realistic poem.
In line 1-3, the lyrical voice is portraying a realistic and naturalistic description of
this experience. He also mentions the flashbacks, which means that the speaker
wrote this by memory.
Trauma is a keyword in this poem. As a symptom of the WW1, soldiers
experienced shellshock because of the impact of the things they suffered in war.
They suffered shellshock because of all the gas and bombings. They also had to
wear gas masks in combats. All of this produced shellshock. In literature there is
also trauma-style, the reader can apply critical trauma, we approach this on a
text to talk about the trauma. This is an example of a speaker that is traumatised
by these experiences, and he writes about that.
Underline words that we do not understand.
Line 4-8. This is very dramatic because it records diving through direct speech
why the soldiers died.
Line 9-14. These lines are often quoted because it describes the moment when
this lyrical voice is recalling back his experience in using the mask. He is
describing also how the gas was: ‘a thick green light’. ‘I saw him drowning’. It is a
very visual text.
Line 15-16, now we have the traumatic experience. He is traumatised by seeing
the real war, the death of all his comrades. It is like it was a nightmare
contemplation. It is related to actions and the semantic field of the sea. It is
ironic, ‘drowning’ because of the green sea, instead of dying.
Line 17-18. There is a hypothesis. The speaker puts the reader in that position.
‘Imagine if you could too pace what we experienced’. He uses flashbacks to tell
the horrible experience.
This text is an example of anti-patriotic text. He became anti-patriotic after he
saw the consequences and his experience of war.
Contrast with Ruper Brooke and this poem. This poem is filled with realistic and
naturalistic visualisations of war.

Siegfried Sassoon
‘They’
The concept of change and time, how time affects mind, all of this is affected on
the writting. How time changes building, cities, etc. Somehow, these concepts of
times and memories are reflected on these texts.
This poem is very modernist.
‘they’ is anonymous, because in war, people die and they are anonymous, they
are forgotten with the pass of time. There are specific names given in this
extract, meaning to draw the reader’s attention as: who are they? ‘ellos’.
This poem is ‘gay’. It had been overshadowed by criticists because of it being
about gay. Some of the authors were gays and they had been condemned and
they had to leave because of the double morality. This poem is not only about
war, about gay and sexuality, which was a taboo in the early XX century for
certain rules. The most chocking words on this poem is: ‘syphilitic’. In a poetry,
we do not expect a word like this.
Syphilis was a sexual disease transmit that was transmitted to the soldier’s
wifes. There were feminists women writing about syphilist because it was like
AIDS, it was a catastrophe. There was no hygiene because of war. It is shocking
to have it on a poem from the XX century. Is not only on men, but also on
women. Women claimed that their husbands had a double life. It is a taboo thing.
There is an ironic poem in which the lyrical voice is alluding to the real
consequences of war in all senses: mental, illness, and it is also an attack for all
the institutions. The speaker is attacking the church, ‘Bishop’, as an institution.
The church of England also encouraged young males to enrol as soldiers, so the
speaker criticises how hypocrite how the state and church of England was.
Line 1-6. This is the speech and the discourse that the bishop gave in the church.
State and church shouldn't be united, but nevertheless in England, the head of
the state was the queen. There is no real separation of state monarchy. They had
a great influence on encouraging people to participate in war.
This is a political poem, and it has a naturalistic insight, and it somehow alludes
indirectly to the emotional attachment that soldiers also had. It was a taboo
thing.
It is very daring to write like this during that time since it was a taboo during that
time. Many artists were more open minded. They were also influenced by France
where all the Avant-Garde movement started.
This poem is an ironic text about war, a critique against the church about how
young addressees, in this case young soldiers, were addressed by preachers, like
the bishop in this case.
In line 7, there is the answer of the boys, who have experienced war. They came
from war traumatised, feeling terrible. ‘We’re none of us the same!’, ya no somos
los mismos.
In line 8-11, is the explanation, the answer, of why they are not the same. There
are given specific names, is not anonymous, although unfortunately, ‘they’ is
anonymous. For instance, it is metaphorical, ‘they’ stand for all the soldiers.
By saying those names, the speaker is giving that sense of emotional attachment
with the comrades that the speaker might have lost, or the speaker defends.
Line 10-11: this line is ironic. With all this happening, they changed the subject
from they to the boy. ‘chap’ is an informal language ‘un tío’. They have all
changed physically and mentally.
Line 12 is also ironic. ‘los caminos de Dios son extraños’.

May Wedderburn Cannan

‘Lamplight’
This discourse is naturalistic and brutal, with tough language. As for women's
poets from WW1 there are also propagandist and nationalist discourses. They
wrote short stories for children justifying the war or praising women. There were
also women who were pacifists.
There is a feminine voice using the first-person pronoun ‘I’, including her
beloved, who might have gone to war or who might have been killed.
Line 1-4: she is using imagination; she is recalling back images of her beloved
who might have been killed during war.
Line 5-6: there is a regret in all these lines, sense of loss and disappointment that
she had a the time because of the terrible atrocity because of the war.
She is sitting at home, recalling back images with him. The beloved has died, and
he is like a ghost-like figure, and is through memory how she recalls him. Line
12-16.