Revision:World War I Poems - Quotes by Theme

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TRENCH LIFE & BATTLE

• “Coughing Like Hags” - Dulce Et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen
• “Guttering, choking, drowning” - Dulce Et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen
• “Stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle” – Anthem for Doomed Youth, Wilfred Owen
• “A great mass of things unclean” – A Dead Boche, Robert Graves
• “Like several different kinds of Hell” –Brooke, in a letter on his day in the war
• “So much muscle and blood in the Earth” Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
• “Beyond the boundaries of human behaviour” -Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
• “The turned soil and torn flesh of war.” - Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
• “Meanwhile my self etcetera lay quietly in the deep mud” - my sweet old etcetera, e.e. cummings
• “You think there’s no limit to what a man can bear?”– Stanhope in Journey’s End, Sherriff
• "Oh, to be killed outright, clean in the clash of the fight!" - On the Wire, Robert Service
• "That is a golden death, that is a boon; but this...drawing an anguished breath" - On the Wire, Robert Service
• "In winter trenches, cowed and glum, with crumps and lice and lack of rum" - Suicide in the Trenches, Sassoon

LOSS

• “They expected to die” – Birdsong, Faulks
• “A dust whom England bore” – The Soldier, Brooke
• “Gentleness, in hearts at peace, under an English Heaven” – The Soldier, Brooke
• “As scared as any frightened child” – The Deserter, Letts
• “Looking on the face of grief, the face of dread” – June 1915, Charlotte Mew
• “The soldier dying dies upon a kiss, The very kiss of Christ” - Summer in England 1914, Alice Meynell
• “The holy glimmer of goodbyes” – Anthem For Doomed Youth, Owen
• “Each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds” – Anthem For Doomed Youth, Owen
• "He put a bullet in his brain, and no one spoke of him again" - Suicide in the Trenches, Sassoon

PATRIOTISM

• “Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori” – Dulce Et Decorum Est, Owen
• “Who’ll give his country a hand?” – Who’s For The Game, Jessie Pope
• “my father used to become hoarse talking about how it was a privilege” - my sweet old etcetera, e.e. cummings
• “There’s something rather romantic about it all” – Osborne in Journey’s End, Sherriff
• “He looked splendid. It – sort of made me feel…keen to get out here” - Raleigh in Journeys End, Sherriff
• “My hatred of the Kaiser is love true” – This Is No Case Of Petty Right Or Wrong – Thomas
• “As we love ourselves, we hate her foe” – This Is No Case Of Petty Right Or Wrong, Thomas
• "You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye, who cheer as soldier boys march by" - Suicide in the Trenches, Sassoon

WOMEN AND THEIR ROLE/ATTITUDES

• “You love us when we’re heroes” – Glory Of Women, Sassoon
• “Come along lads” – Who’s For The Game, Jessie Pope
• “Isabel created hundreds (and hundreds) of socks”–my sweet old etcetera, cummings
• “Can’t you see it isn’t decent, to flout and goad men into doing what is not asked of you?” – The Jingo-Woman, Helen Hamilton
• “We dare not weep who must be brave in battle” – Of All Who Died In Silence Far Away, Iris Tree
• “Anyone affected by the war is entitled to comment upon it” – Nasheen Khan
• "I never minded these aches and pains, which appeared to me solely as satisfactory tributes to my love for Roland" - Testament of Youth, Vera Britten

GENERAL

• “Not quite clear…what the fuss was about” – He Went For A Soldier, Ruth Mitchell
• “The political errors and insincerities” – A Soldier’s Declaration, Sassoon
• “A war of aggression and conquest” – A Soldier’s Declaration, Sassoon
• “I am acting on behalf of soldiers” - A Soldier’s Declaration, Sassoon
• “An exploration of how far men can be degraded” – Birdsong, Faulks
• “You are going to fight and you are going to win.” – Birdsong, Faulks
• “They didn’t believe in shellshock at all…it was just cowardice” - Regeneration, Pat Barker
• “The pity and terror the war experience inevitably evoked” – Regeneration, Pat Barker
• “It all seems rather silly, doesn’t it?” – Raleigh in Journey’s End, Sherriff
• “My subject is war and the pity of war.” – Wilfred Owen

CRITICAL COMMENTS ON THE WAR CANON

• “Passive suffering is not a theme for poetry” – Yeats
• “War equates with combat thus limiting the canon” – James Campbell
• “The knowledge of combat is a prerequisite for the production of a literary text that adequately deals with war” – James Campbell
• “Anyone affected by war is entitled to comment upon it” – Nasheen Khan
• “The spectator, the contemplator, the opposer of war have their hours with the enemy no less than uniformed combatants” – Richard Eberhart

Comments

These notes are aimed at A Level English students at A2 level.

Originally written by PigPigeon on TSR Forums.