War Poets

The FIRST WORLD WAR destroyed the belief in PROGRESS, which had found so many supporters in the 19th centuury

The war lasted LONGER and was WORSE than expected

Young people LOST  their lives quite often because of the stubborness, incompetence, disorganization of politicians and high command.

In ENGLAND, the first response was a sort of ROMANTIC VIEW, supported by propaganda and by a deep sense of patriotic duty.

As the war went on, this attitude changes. The poets described the horror of battles

RUPERT BROOKE(1887-1915)

On the outbreak of the war, he enlisted as an officer

He died of blood poisoning on the island of Skyros

He was really good-looking. He became the romantic symbol of the soldier-poet (1914 and Other poems published in 1915)

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke, 1887 - 1915

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.

Il soldato

Se dovessi morire, pensa solo questo di me:
che c’è qualche angolo di un campo straniero
che sarà per sempre Inghilterra. C’è
in quella ricca terra una polvere nascosta più ricca;

Una polvere che l’Inghilterra ha fatto nascere, ha formato, reso consapevole,
a cui ha dato, una volta, i suoi fiori da amare, le sue strade da girovagare,
un corpo di Inghilterra, che respira aria inglese,
bagnata dai fiumi, benedetta dai soli di casa.

E pensa, questo cuore, liberatosi dal male,
un palpito nella mente Eterna, non di meno
restituisce da qualche parte i pensieri donati dall’Inghilterra,
i suoi sospiri e suoni; sogni felici come il suo giorno;
e risate imparate dagli amici; e gentilezza,
nei cuori in pace, sotto un cielo Inglese.

THE SOLDIER

It belongs to the sonnet sequence 1914 written during the first phase of the war.

It expresses what Englishmen felt in the autumn of 1914:

• sense of patriotism
• idealization of those who died in battle
• the sonnet presents a vague generalization of the war seen as self-sacrifice=glory
• no hint at the real  horrors of the war
• the death of the soldier is considered as the ideal reunion with his mother country

SIEGFRIED SASSOON (1886-1967)

He enlisted in the British army (an infantry officer)

He was wounded, decorated and promoted to captain. However, he hated the war.He pointed the grim reality of thench life.

He eventually became a pacifist and wrote satirical anti-war poems (Counter Attack 1918, Satirical Poems 1926)

'They' by Siegfried Sassoon

       The Bishop tells us: 'When the boys come back

       'They will not be the same; for they'll have fought

       'In a just cause: they lead the last attack

       'On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought

       'New right to breed an honourable race,

       'They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'

       'We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.

       'For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;

       'Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;

       'And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find

       'A chap who's served that hasn't found some change.

       ' And the Bishop said: 'The ways of God are strange!'

Essi

Il vescovo ci dice: “Quando i ragazzi torneranno
non saranno più gli stessi; perchè hanno combattuto
per una giusta causa: essi hanno condotto l’ultimo attacco
contro l’Anti-Cristo; il sangue dei loro compagni ha ottenuto
il diritto di portare avanti una razza onorabile,
essi hanno sfidato la Morte faccia a faccia.”

“Noi non saremo più gli stessi!”, replicano i ragazzi.
“Perchè George ha perso entrambe le gambe; e Bill è diventato cieco;
Al povero Jim hanno sparato nei polmoni ed è quasi morto;
E Bert ha contratto la sifilide: non troverai
alcun tipo di persona che ha servito in battaglia che non abbia subito cambiamenti.”
E il Vescovo rispose: “I mezzi di Dio sono strani!”.

THEY

Analyse  the poem

The two stanzas represent two points of view on war and its effects on soldiers.

The first point of view is based on opinions, while the second one is based on facts.

The poem is an imaginary dialogue between a Bishop urging young soldiers to fight in a just war and the soldiers who have experimented the horror of war.

The bishop encourages the soldiers to go and die at the front, as he believes that the conflict is justified and that it will generate a new and better race of men.

The boys who use the personal pronoun we, reply by making a list of the actual results of a war- terrible wounds, mutilation,physical agony. The only change they are aware of is for the worse.

Two different registers are used in the poem.

In the first stanza the register is religious, high-flown, ornate,figurative, while in the second one it is colloquial, down-to-earth, realistic and informal.

The Bishop expresses his view of war as a just cause.

The soldiers describe the physical horror of war and list their disabled comrades.

The juxtaposition of the two register reinforces the clash between the two views of war- one moralistic and gloryfying suffering having no link wih the real experience of war, the other realistic and emphasizing suffering because born out of first-hand experience.

It is not about what really happens during a war. 

It is about:

• what is said before it (propaganda) and seen after it (the real war)
• the gap in communication within the mother country (between those who fight and those who don't)
• the horryfying effects of war from both the physical and moral point of view.

It is an attack against those who cannot see the cruelty of war- who , like the Bishop, reply when confronted with evidence of suffering ' The ways of God are strange!'

GIUSEPPE UNGARETTI, Veglia.

Un'intera nottata
buttato vicino
a un compagno
massacrato
con la sua bocca
digrignata
volta al plenilunio
con la congestione
delle sue mani
penetrata
nel mio silenzio
ho scritto
lettere piene d'amore

Non sono mai stato
tanto
attaccato alla vita

GIUSEPPE UNGARETTI,Soldati
Si sta come
d'autunno
sugli alberi le foglie