English Poetry, XIX & XX Century. Facultad de Filología, Universidad de
Valencia
Profesor:
Dr. Vicente Forés
Student:
Marcos A. Palao Contreras
FIRST WORLD WAR
An essay on “Peace” by Rupert Brooke and “Anthem for the Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen
Two poets, one single period, and two different views on war. As we
shall see through this essay, both poets, despite belonging to the same period
and supporting both of them the same view in favour of the war at the very
first, as both of them enrolled in the army, lately only Owen will change his
mind rather evidently, adopting a different and questioning perspective. We can
see in both of them how they refer to the same things such as the state,
Church, God and to religious references.
First I shall deal with Brooke’s poems entitled “Peace” and the ideas
the poet expresses in this poem. The first thing that is worth mentioning is
that Brooke was a romantic as he even belonged to the group of Georgian poets
who were in favour of sentimentality, romanticism and hedonism -along with
other poets such as Sassoon, Graves or DH Lawrence- (en.wikipedia.org) where
his idealistic conception of war might come from, and that it is God itself who
supports it, that’s probably why Brooke started “Peace” thanking God “[...] Who
has matched us with His hour”, where besides giving thanks he also writes both Who
and His with capital letters as a sign of respect and suggesting that
war it’s god’s matter.
Besides, also for the fact that he uses the verb match too, which
can be understood as making people at the time suitable for the thrilling times
they were living, so the author himself is prepared for the war, because god
has prepared him for it.
This leads us to another idea out of Brooke’s poem, that war for him
seems to have a cleansing power, to get absolution and baptism as he was born
in the city of Rugby where the doctrine of Muscular Christianity was taught,
and with which it was possible to get absolution and baptism through getting
into the game (Means, Robert), through getting into the war. Those images of
baptism and absolution are specially addressed to young people as he says in
the second line “[...] and caught our youth , and wakened us from sleeping”
also suggesting that it is young people who are not aware of what is going on with the war, while the
images can be seen when he writes “[...] as swimmers into cleanness leaping”.
Brooke also belonged to the Bloomsbury group in the beginning , a group that
called themselves pacifists, they who even plotted the Dreadnought Hoax
to mock the Royal Navy (en.wikipedia.org) a group against which Brooke seems to
stand in this poems when he writes “[...] leave the sick hearts that honour
could not move” saying that they are not to act to favour their country in the
war. This might be motivated because of the misfortune he found in love as his
once girlfriend Katherine Cox showed interest in another man which lead him to
a kind of mental breakdown (warpoetry.co.uk) that might lead him to enrol in
the army as he writes “[...] we, who have known shame, we have found release
there”, and “there” stands for the war, so war would be the substitute for
love, love that he sees all around him in pre-war England also in the many
postcard showing loving couples saying goodbye to each other.
Finally, in the last lines of the poem he says that gay hearts don’t
have to fear nothing in war “[...] nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long
peace there” that he only fears “agony” and this has an end, and it’s death,
maybe because for him this might be a release. He will finally die during war
time, but of a mosquito bite that poisoned his blood (en.wikipedia.org)
Regarding Owen’s, I have to start saying that this poem “Anthem for
Doomed Youth” was written during his stay at Craiglockhart War Hospital near
Edinburgh, where he met Sassoon (bbc.co.uk), thus understanding that Owen had
already experienced in his own body what war was really like. In this poem we
can see Owen’s negative view in which he questions the romantic view that led
so many young people to war, with the support and promotion by church and
state.
Already with the title we can see, on the one hand, that first of all he
labels his poem an “Anthem”, which has connotations both with religion, as it’s
the name religious songs get, and with country, as it’s also the name of
country’s “National Anthem” or hymn, and that it is dedicated to the “doomed
youth” doomed because they are not going to war, they are heading to death
itself. What Owen is questioning here it is “his” church and country position
toward their sons who go to war to fight for both of them, but that this youth
does not get any honour specially from church, that church does not honour its
victims, “What passing bells for these who dies as cattle”, and besides they
die as cattle like implying that they are not worth of respect, and the only
one that they deserve are the sound of guns and rifles that besides are
“mostruous” and “stuttering”, as there’s no time for stopping. Here Owen also
uses alliteration of the “r” sound to highlight this unceasing idea of
machineguns’ sound when he writes “[...] the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle…”
Another link to religion, and of church, is the use Owen does of the
word “choir”, which is the group of young boys who sing in churches during mess
time, and that here there is no other voice than these of the wasted bullet
shells after they are shot, “[...] any voice of mourning save the choirs, the
shrill demented choirs of wailing shells”; the only place where the soldiers
can get respect and honour from are their homes, their shires, which, of
course, (the only ones that) are sad:
“[...] bugles calling for them from sad shires”.
So, the most he regrets is the lack of sympathy his country and his
church show towards the soldiers, as himself, once they are dead, once they
have died for their country, besides taking into consideration that they,
country (state) and church (religion) pushed and encouraged them to go to war.
Thus, in my opinion, Brooke’s motivation comes form his state of confusion
after his love failures while Owen’s one comes from his own experience.
SOURCES:
Other
works:
-
“Georgian Poets”. www.en.wikipedia.org. 19
November 2005. Wikimedia Foundation. 5 April 2006.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_poets>
-
Means, Robert. “Rupert Brooke”.
www.oucs.ox.ac.uk. 28 November 1996. English Literature Librarian, Harold B.
Lee Library, Brigham Young University. 5 April 2006. <http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/projects/jtap/tutorials/intro/brooke/ipeace.html>
-
“Bloomsbury Group”. www.en.wikipedia.org. 1
April 2006. Wikimedia Foundation. 5 April 2006.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsbury_group>
-
Rupert brooke's actual reaction to war. 2004.
Saxon Books. 5 April 2006.
<http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/brooke2.html>
-
“Historic Figures”. www.bbc.co.uk. 6 April
2006. British Broadcasting Corporation. 6 April 2006
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/owen_wilfred.shtml