May 7, 2003
From the desk of Jane Galt:Poetry Wednesday
Most of the poetry we now know from World War I, with the exception of In Flanders Fields, is a blistering indictment of the horrors of war. But there were also poems in the heroic tradition, like this one from Rupert Brooke:
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.
The cynic in us says that this is not true: memories fade, the earthworms carry those last molecules of England away. But another part of me says that it is true; that the heroic choice to place your own body between your beloved home and war's desolation cannot be erased, even if it is forgotten. Brooke himself died of blood poisoning en route to the Dardanelles, and he is buried in a grave on Skyros that will be forever England as long as anyone is reading English poetry.
Of course, I have the furtive fondness for maudlin poetry characteristic of the upper-middlebrow. Don't worry; next week we'll have excerpts from Howl.
Posted by Jane Galt at May 7, 2003 9:27 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksJane, of course you know that In Flanders Fields was written by a Canadian.
Hey, I have nothing against Canadians. Some of my best friends are Canadian.
Excerpts from 'Howl'??? Gack! Would only be OK if all you excerpted was the punctuation!
I'm no English major, but it seems a somewhat wide definition of "heroic" that includes someone reminiscing about his childhood while expecting to be shot.
Broadly, the war poetry is in either the heroic or antiheroic tradition. This is not in the antiheroic tradition. You're right that it's not a heroic poem, which generally centers around a hero killing bad guys, but it is in the heroic tradition, which centers around soldiers bravely facing death.
"the heroic choice to place your own body between your beloved home and war's desolation"...
"Brooke himself died of blood poisoning en route to the Dardanelles" where he was placing his body, to prevent the nasty Ottomans from slipping across the Med, through Gibraltar, then stealthily sneaking into England herself, where they would slash the throats of aged nuns and desolate Our Children. Yes! Heroism! (What a pity to be ignominiously slain by a mosquito!)
Fortunately the attack was a smashing success:
The evacuation operation was easily the most successful element of the entire campaign, with casualty figures significantly lower than Hamilton had predicted (official figures quote just three casualties). Painstaking efforts had been made to deceive the 100,000 watching Turkish troops into believing that the movement of Allied forces did not constitute a withdrawal....
Some 480,000 Allied troops had been dedicated to the failed campaign. British casualties (including imperial forces) amounted to approximately 205,000. French losses were estimated at around 47,000. Turkey incurred around 250,000 casualties.Brooke's death is truly representative of the great value of war.
One doesn't need to honor the war to honor the courage it takes to die for one's country, Leonard.
someone had to incorporate empire and imperial forces into the conversation, thanks Leonard.
When speaking of the "Dardanelles" Churchill and Anzac come to mind. Of course when speaking of the Dardanelles' campaign, Winston (who is widely credited as the man who committed British, French and - above all - untested Australian and New Zealand forces to the ill-fated campaign) dwelled in the dark abyss. And of course the people of Australia and New Zealand who admired and wept for their fellow citizens and Anzac became an institution in the new commonwealths.
The lessons learned in the Dardanelle's served the British well both in Northern Africa and of course Winston's leadership is credited with saving Great Britain in WWII.
But then again my favorite heroic poem is not about man or men but a she, as in a ship.
OLD IRONSIDES
By Oliver Wendell Holmes
September 16, 1830
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.
Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
Oh, better that her shattered bulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
Of course, you can visit the U.S.S. Constitution, anytime you are in Boston and her history is incorporated in the Marine Core Hym ( a heroic song) as well as in the local lore of two small towns in Connecticut regarding one Issac Hull (a heroic figure).
from the banks of the Housatonic.
Brooke was one of his generation's golden boys; as I recall, his famous poem was written before he saw any real service. He wrote some later poetry which showed signs of a more realistic grasp of the realities of WW I. Nearly everyone who served in that war came out of it sickened by the carnage.
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