war poetry

Question 1

introduction
(war poetry)

Answer 1

World War I / The Great War – 1914-1918, led to World War II
Many deaths – soldiers, civils, epidemics → more than 40 million
Politics – new nations after vanishing Ottoman Empire, want their own independence
Technological/industrial developments – high speed, new weapons for in the war, ‘showcase’ of new weapons, tanks airplanes submarines, new ways of fighting, trucks cars and trains faster for delivering supplies, guns, chemical weapons
Changing attitude – beginning (optimism, heroic), during (realisation, shock), ending (pessimism, lack of trust in authorities)

Question 2

the soldier
(war poetry)

Answer 2

– Rupert Brooke
Beginning of the war – excited to fight for country, not yet experienced the influence of war on health, both physical and mental.
Dust – man (risen out of dust/returning to dust according to the Bible)
Heart – dying means heart/pulse stops → give heart to England (sacrifices for the peace)
Hope (heart) gives power (pulse) → when heart stops, power stops (remarkable?)

Question 3

the mother
(war poetry)

Answer 3

– May Herschel Clark
Beginning of the war – proud of her son to be in the war
Internal conflict of the mother – proud of her son to be fighting, sad and scared to lose him

Question 4

the poet as hero
(war poetry)

Answer 4

During the war – changing opinion positive to negative
Changing attitude – positive (feels like a knight) to negative (knight disappeared, PTSD)

Question 5

the glory of women
(war poetry)

Answer 5

– Siegfried Sassoon
Mindset of women – love heroic, brave men who are wounded, romanticize the war, can’t believe they retire because they haven’t experienced the PTSD and sights on the field
Mentionable place – physical wounds and mental wounds
Shells – only see the outside, not how the war is killing the soldiers on the inside
Pity for both sides – English: describing us heroes, German: mother hoping son will come back

Question 6

the end
(war poetry)

Answer 6

– Wilfred Owen
End of the war – after …
Searching for hope – shall Life renew these bodies?, fill these void veins again with youth
Personification – Life, Age, Earth → no one knows what will happen, ask things that will always be

Question 7

anthem for doomed youth
(war poetry)

Answer 7

– Wilfred Owen
End of the war – many deaths, …
Comparison normal times vs now – normal burials (ceremonies, prayers, bells, choirs, candles), burials of soldiers now (guns, shells, wailing, bugles, pallor of girls)
Attitude – honour/glory/optimistic → doomed/die for nothing/pessimistic

Question 8

in flanders fields
(war poetry)

Answer 8

– John McCrae
End of the war – in Flanders fields the poppies blow
Meaning – if we are dead/buried, beautiful/heroic → wasted, tell reader to keep fighting
Stop fighting – means losing – means died for nothing → so fight