236 replies to this topic

[PBI]

I was there and Harry was fed up with meeting Stuffed Shirts.End of Story.

[J Banning]

I don't recall you being there, let alone in a stuffed shirt....

[Terry_Reeves]

Let things cool a bit here please, no more warnings after this.

TR

[boysoldier]

Thanks Terry, if I may as a newbie comment , they do tend to go on a bit

Thanks Terry, if I may as a newbie comment , they do tend to go on a bit

[IanA]

Sorry, could you repeat that?

[Landsturm]

Just recently bought The First World War: an illustrated history by John Keegan. It has many VERY interesting photos and artwork but there are so many errors in the text that simple reduce it's worth. Seems to me that the author didn't bother to check anything out. If I was the author I'd kept simply as a art- and photobook.

[boysoldier]

Thanks Terry , if I may as a newbie comment, they do tend to go on a bit.

[IanA]

Ta.  

[Dragon]

It's not specifically a First World War poem, I don't think - more a general 'war poem'.  It's written by a woman named Gillian Clarke, who would, I suppose, be termed a 'modern poet.'  ...  To say the least, I thought the poem rather pathetic, lacking in substance and unworthy of it's subject.

I want to comment in the interests of accuracy.

Gillian Clarke is very much a modern poet and is still alive. I find her Anglo-Welsh works powerful and effective.

It's not specifically a First World War poem, I don't think  ... she had been asked to write something on the Vietnam War,

‘The Field Mouse’ reflects her consciousness of the war in Bosnia, which was happening at the time she wrote the poem. She sees a link between the life in the Welsh countryside around her and the life in Bosnia: it is late summer, the time for harvesting in both. Harvesting is both productive and destructive. This isn’t a forum for detailed literary criticism, so I won’t discuss her choice of language and style, but the parallels she makes in her imagery seem valid. For example, the buzzing of insects echoes the roar of the military planes practising overhead, which takes her thoughts towards war; the painful deaths of small animals under the blades is, to her, a reminder of the pain and deaths of civilians: both are witnessed by children who have to come to terms with death and destruction caused by others.

She also states elsewhere that the Welsh phrase for haymaking is ‘killing hay’. This is supported by the phrases ‘the fields hurt’ and ‘the field lies bleeding’. As a Welsh speaker, she would have been simultaneously conscious of the two meanings.

The first stanza described how she was out in the countryside, watching a combine harvester at work, when she came upon some dead field mice

(Mouse.) She doesn’t come across the mouse; the little nest made by cupped hands and its dying, suffering occupant is brought to her by children. She has been trying to forget the awfulness of the war in Bosnia, but the suffering of the mouse draws her memory back to what she’d been trying to put out of her mind. As the harvest ends, her garden is a refuge for animals which have fled the destruction: refugees.

these mice also looked so 'innocent’

It is one mouse. She doesn’t use the word 'innocent’ at all in the poem. As far as the mouse is concerned, she is acutely aware of its ‘agony big as itself’ and its vulnerability. Innocence or otherwise is not the point. Even the guilty feel pain. The substance of the poem is her reaction as a human to the pain of the animal and the pain of human beings in warfare.

The remainder of the poem proceeded to liken the fallen soldiers to the mice.

She doesn’t mention soldiers. The concept of deaths in war could equally well apply to civilians. That’s how I read it.

Gillian Clarke had no specific interest in her subject matter

As she doesn’t specify the Bosnian war,  the parallels between war and the destructive nature of haymaking could apply to other wars. The nightmare vision at the end seems to me to be that of a woman very disturbed by the appalling war in another part of Europe, rather than someone with ‘no specific interest’.


One's response to a poem is personal. However, specific paraphrases, criticisms and condemnations need to be made with an eye to academic rigour. Oh, and its ( = possession) has no apostrophe.

Gwyn

[marina]

Poetry prior to the Great War was 'Georgian Poetry' - in many ways a development of Romanticism, certainly I think it had it's roots in lyrical ballads.  Losing oneself in nature when the reality becomes too much...  Only all that changed in 1914.

That's a very sweeping statement, Katie, encompassing a couple of hundred years of a literature which took many different shapes and forms.  And which  'it' which had its root in lyrical ballads?
As for Burns, he didn't escape reality in nature;  for him, as for most people of his time,  nature was reality. And I don't agree that all that changed in 1914 - on the Wildlfe thread on this Forum there are many quotations from soldiers about the pleasures of nature, even at the Front, even in the trenches.
60 years later, Hughes was still writing nature poetry (of a kind) and linking it to human nature and war.
Marina

[Dragon]

'Georgian Poetry' ...  it had it's roots in lyrical ballads

Do you mean lyrical ballads or 'Lyrical Ballads'?

Sorry, Katie, I'm not picking on you, but I know you hope to take English and as someone who did the same a while ago, in challenging you I'm trying to help you. If you meant the former, I don't think your argument would stand up.

Gwyn

[Katie Elizabeth Stewart]

I meant the latter.  And 'roots' was too strong a statement, you're right.  Maybe 'influence' would be more accurate.  But I suppose really Georgian Poetry is more Keatsian/decadent anyway.  I apologise for anything I may have said in my youthful greeness!  I value Gillian Clarke's imagery, and I was aware that she was still alive, having seen her perform myself.  I don't like much of her poetry at all - and I have read more - I find it overly sentimental and not realistic enough.  Just a personal opinion, and I'm sorry if I offended you Gwyn.  

You may be aware of Kate Clanchy, a former British Red Cross poet?  Well, she uses similar imagery in 'War Poetry' - I think it's a wasp's nest (does that have a possessive apostrophe in?!) to illustrate the turmoil and strife, and then she has all the boys sitting passively in their classroom, making a great deal of noise with visions and ideology, but doing...NOTHING. And I personally find the overall effect much more powerful.  As a modern poet, she keeps her distance, is almost detached yet not wanting compassion, and makes sure to disassociate herself respectfully from the horrors and suffering of the Great War, referring to the 'close darkening lanes' in 'The Send-Off' as 'Owen's', thus recognising that they belong to a different generation.

[Katie Elizabeth Stewart]

Maybe I should have said Edward Thomas escaped the reality through nature!  And Owen and Sassoon altered their poetic styles fundamentally, adopting a harsher, more realistic tone.  But Marina, I really don't think you can deny that the damage inflicted upon nature in the trenches made it less of a paradise, and less of a solace.  I also do not believe you can deny that poetry has altered irrevocably since then, or that the generations after the Great War generation did look upon the term 'Georgian Poetry' as an archaism and something of an embarassment.

[Katie Elizabeth Stewart]

That's a very sweeping statement, Katie ... snip ...
Marina

In what way was 'that' a sweeping statement, whatever 'that' might be?  I did not encompass a couple of hundred years' literature in any sense.  When I referred to 'Georgian Poetry', surely you must have realised I meant poetry written during the reign of George V??!!  I'm not saying that maliciously, only, please clarify??!!!

[Chris_Baker]

Please bring this thread back onto topic.

[Katie Elizabeth Stewart]

Please bring this thread back onto topic.

  Apologies, Chris.  It usually seems to be me that gets carried away these days!

[wizzywadey]

Apologies, Chris.  It usually seems to be me that gets carried away these days!

Birdsong & Shot at dawn....oh and Memoirs of The Great War by Dawson. I found his account of the war very "matter of factly" which is a good thing... but very cold natured...I was surprised to read however that whilst the 159th RFA were living in squalor and getting serious heat from enemy artillery, he still found time to go on regular leave and play polo with other toffs.  
Regards
Ian

[Martin Brown]

I can't believe that Ben Elton's book attracts so much ire.  It's fantastic as a case study of cliches about the War and in terms of a tick list of 1914-18 cultural phenomena - IRA, suffragettes, poets, pacifists etc etc oh and lots of futility.  I love it. Above all it's definitley not boring.

On a more serious note Birdsong is much derided but I regard it much as I regard Time Team - it's fun, it's not especially aimed at me and it attracts people to what I'm doing/interested in. Archaeologists meet lots of people who want to talk about TT and I also get plenty of people asking me about Birdsong and both parties say things like "I only got interested because of..."  It's all good publicity for our interests and might excite the interest of the next (insert name of favourite historian here).

[Katie Elizabeth Stewart]

I can't believe that Ben Elton's book attracts so much ire.  It's fantastic as a case study of cliches about the War and in terms of a tick list of 1914-18 cultural phenomena - IRA, suffragettes, poets, pacifists etc etc oh and lots of futility.  I love it. Above all it's definitley not boring.

On a more serious note Birdsong is much derided but I regard it much as I regard Time Team - it's fun, it's not especially aimed at me and it attracts people to what I'm doing/interested in. Archaeologists meet lots of people who want to talk about TT and I also get plenty of people asking me about Birdsong and both parties say things like "I only got interested because of..."  It's all good publicity for our interests and might excite the interest of the next (insert name of favourite historian here).

I don't understand how anyone can dismiss 'Birdsong' as mere 'fun'.  Some books make me cry, but that one had me doubled up howling, I thought it one of the most compassionate I have ever read.

[Martin Brown]

I don't understand how anyone can dismiss 'Birdsong' as mere 'fun'.  Some books make me cry, but that one had me doubled up howling, I thought it one of the most compassionate I have ever read.

Sorry Katie, I agree it is very moving and compassionate.  I thihk I was thinking more of TT than Birdsong when I wrote that.  I actually think the power of Birdsong is that it makes the war accessible and personal in just the way you describe and that it has such emotional power with it.  I wasn't meaning to be dismissive, just using inappropriate shorthand - the curse of email and bulletin boards!

Martin

[John Hartley]

that one had me doubled up howling,

I thihk I was thinking more of TT

TT often has me doubled up howling

[charlesmessenger]

To give a view on Birdsong, I thoroughly enjoyed the first part, especially the atmosphere of prewar bourgeois France that he created. Alas, when he came to the war it became wholly unrealistic and I was unable to finish it. He simply had not done his research.

Charles M

[Greyhound]

I can't remember a thing about it, I'm afraid.     

Same goes for pretty well all of the Great War-related fiction I've read, although I may have enjoyed it while reading it at the time.

[Katie Elizabeth Stewart]

Apology accepted, Martin, although there was really no need.  Of course, you are entitled to your own view.  I just appreciate Mr. Faulk's work as a student of English, someone who is interested in words and the effect they have and the emotions they evoke.  

TT come again???

And interesting you should say that about the first part, Charles.  I thought in places it was tantamount to pornography, and unnecessarily so.  I couldn't read it without glowing peony!  If there were any parts of the book I disliked, it was the parts where the story focuses on Stephen's granddaughter, Elizabeth: it occasionally sounded more akin to a Soap Opera than a poignant novel about the Great War!

[PBI]

I have just about managed to stay Awake and Finish Reading the Herman Sulzbach Book "With The German Guns"..and i dearly wished i hadnt,i was expecting an Informative and interesting insight into the Life of A German Soldier and later Officer in the Great War,and sadly all i could get from it was an Account of How many different Soirees and Dinners He Attended,and how many Leaves He went on and Where..Occasionaly He mentions a Friend being Killed or Wounded,the Book makes no real Attempt to describe Life for the German Soldier,as He simply keeps on about,Strength,Unity,Comradeship,etc,etc.The Book was first Published in 1935,and IMOH Opinion is a Dreary,unimaganative,and ultimately Deeply unsatisfying Read.The One Redeeming Facet of this Book are the Pictures taken by the Author.