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Title: World War One British Poets : Brooke, Owen, Sassoon, Rosenberg and Others by Candace Ward ISBN: 0-486-29568-0 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 22 April, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: good stuff
Comment: I'm not a big fan of poetry. When this book was assigned for one of my classes, I was afraid it was going to be a huge chore to get through it. However, I was pleasantly surprised by many of the poems in this book...there were several that I took a strong liking to, including the classic "In Flander's Field," among others. I found many of the poems quite touching.
And an added bonus, they're all pretty short.
Rating: 5
Summary: A good, inexpensive primer to WW1 poetry
Comment: The two cultural features from the First World War that have survived the test of time are its popular music and its poetry. While the music is generally remembered as peppy and cheerful, much of the poetry serves as a dark and grim counterpart. As it is, some of the greatest 20th Century poets derived their inspiration from those tragic years.
This book is an excellent and inexpensive sampler of World War One-era poetry. Most of the major battlefield writers are represented, including Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, Isaac Rosenberg, and John MacCrae. Other important writers who were inspired by the war are also included, such as Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy. Two women, Alice Meynell and May Cannan are also represented. The editor included a balanced number of patriotic works and anti-war poems.
Each writer has a mini-biography, followed by a sampling of his or her works. The quantity varies from a single poem, up to 11 works. The selections are representative of the authors, and many of the best-known titles are here, including Dulce et Decorum Est and In Flanders Fields.
This primer is hardly comprehensive nor is there much critical analysis of the poems or poets. But it is not meant to be. This book combines a well-rounded selection of poetry with an extremely low price to make it an attractive introduction to World War One-era poetry. This is not the best anthology out there, but it is a perfect introduction for those who are curious about First World War poems and don't want to pay a hefty price.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Poems on War
Comment: I am not a poetry reader. Perhaps due to a lasting revulsion of forced readings in various literature classes during my tenure in public school, poetry used to be a real turn off. Until I picked up this slim book of poems of British World War I poets, that is. After a few pages of some of the excellent poetry in this book, the pulse quickened, the lights came on, and poetry suddenly seemed useful.
World War I (1914-1918) is pretty much a forgotten war today. Occasionally, you'll see a documentary containing grainy footage of men in strange helmets climbing out of trenches, usually moving at a freakishly quick pace due to the inadequacy of the early film process. WWI is further overshadowed by the mega-death body count of WWII. But WWI had its own unique horrors as the nations involved resorted to poison gas, mechanized warfare, and attrition strategies to kill off some 15 million people. The new methods of mechanized warfare failed to stifle the human element of war, and this is where these poems come into play. Some of the soldiers involved in the conflict were poets and writers, and they used these talents to document the battlefield horrors for the folks back home.
There are male and female writers here, and those who were there and those who stayed home. Those who served in the war do the best jobs with their poetry. Even May Wedderburn Cannan, a woman who served as a nurse at Rouen, writes better poetry about the war than such distinguished literary figures Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy (both of whom write from the safety of the home fires).
Keeping in line with the subject matter, most of the poems are grim and violent. Many of the poems focus on the incongruity of nature and violent acts of war. In one stanza, birds are chirping, the sun is shining, men are singing, and all seems right with the world. The next stanza is filled with sudden mutilations, violent death, and the shriek and scream of shells and bullets. Some of the poems deal with the anguish of watching someone die or killing another human being, as Wilfred Owen writes in "The Target" about a possible meeting in the afterlife with an enemy he's killed:
"Well, if they get me, first I'll find
That boy, and tell him all my mind,
And see who felt the bullet worst,
And ask his pardon, if I durst."
A few of the poets speak in favor of the war, seeing it as a call to glory or a defense against barbarism (see Rupert Brooks, John McCrae, and Rudyard Kipling). Others rail against the rulers and the senseless attrition warfare (Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Isaac Rosenberg best represent this viewpoint).
Regardless of ideological viewpoint or writing style, all of the poems have a beauty that comes from dealing with horrors beyond the comprehension of the individual. The overwhelming power of the poems should make the hardiest soul's eyes mist over with tears of frustration, agony, and profound sadness.
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Title: The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry by Jon Silkin ISBN: 0141180099 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1997 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Good-Bye to All That : An Autobiography by Paul Fussell, Robert Graves ISBN: 0385093306 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 01 February, 1958 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Hart-Davis ISBN: 0571130151 Publisher: Faber & Faber Pub. Date: 01 January, 1983 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen by Wilfred Owen, Cecil Day Lewis ISBN: 0811201325 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Pub. Date: December, 1965 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Regeneration by Pat Barker ISBN: 0452270073 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: July, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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