Working title for the war poets

1. THE GREAT WAR
1914-1918
THE YOUTH THAT NEVER WAS
THE WAR THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN

2. If I should die, think only this of me.
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever 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.
Rupert Brooke, 1887-1915

4. NO
MAN’S
LAND
Beginning of the trenches

7. Trenches
From air

9. No Man’s land

10. View of the front

11. In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hand we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae (1872-1918)

12. What is the mood and tone of the poem –
how does it change as the poem progresses?
Why are we moved by the declarative
“We are the Dead” in the second
stanza?
What do the dead ask of the living?
What is the primary duty that the living owe to
honor the soldiers?
FFOOOODD FFOORR TTHHOOUUGGHHTT ::
HHooww lloonngg ccaann——aanndd sshhoouulldd——wwee bbee oorr ffeeeell aaccccoouunnttaabbllee ttoo ““kkeeeepp
ffaaiitthh”” wwiitthh tthhee ccaauussee ffoorr wwhhiicchh oouurr ssoollddiieerrss ddiieedd –– lliibbeerrttyy ……

14. The death bed (1916)
Siegfried Sassoon
He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep.
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.
Someone was holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
Through crimson gloom to darkness….
… Rain-he could hear it rustling through the dark;
…. Gently and slowly washing life away.
He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain
Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs…
And death, who’d stepped toward him, paused and stared…

15. The death bed (1916) - Siegfried Sassoon
Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He’s young; he hated War; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?
But death replied: ‘I choose him.’ So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

16. . .. The men who were not getting in a bit of extra sleep sat
about talking and smoking, writing letters home, cleaning
their rifles, running their thumb-nails up the seams of their
shirts to kill the lice, gambling. Lice were a standing joke.
Young Bumford handed me one like this. 'We was just having
an argument as to whether it was best to kill the old ones or
the young ones, sir. Morgan here says that if you kill the old
ones, the young ones will die of grief, but Parry here, sir, he
says that the young ones are easier to kill and you can catch
the old ones when they come to the funeral.‘
Robert Graves Goodbye to all That
LLiinnkk

17. New weapons of war – Trench warfare
Tanks
Guns, Rifles, and Grenades
Air Warfare –
The sky became another battlefield
Naval Warfare – naval technology &
sophisticated submarines
Poison Gas: Chemical warfare
development of arms, ammunition
& growth of telecommunications
*bloodiest battles of World War I took place in the areas
of northern France and southwest Belgium known as
Flanders and Picardy

18. Bent double like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame: all blind:
….
Gas!Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time:
But some still was yelling out and stumbling
And floud’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

19. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If … you too could pace
….watch the white eyes writhing … ,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer,
…M
y friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen

20. Otto
Dix
The Flare, 1917