COURSE 202 401 English Poetry and Drama 1900 to Contemporary Times Courses on Poetry: Voices from the

Battlefield: This course will engage with English (British and American) poetry that relates to the experience of the two World Wars. The readings are likely to survey classic war poets (Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen) trench poets (Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfred Sasoon, John McCrae) and include select readings from Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Ronald Ross, Robert Graves, D.H.Lawrence, Stephen Spender, W.H. Auden and Dylan Thomas. Through this range of modern poetry, students will be introduced to debates hinging on attitudes to war, warfare, pacifism, non-violence, to the socio-cultural impact of war on art and writing, to the emergence of new languages, techniques and forms of expression. War will be considered as a global/international event that intersected with discourses of imperialism, patriotism, victimization and violence as well as new political ideologies.
1. The heritage of the Great War. Mainly photographs and visual archives

http://www.greatwar.nl/
2. (America and the Great War)

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/preservation/books/over.htm#ameri
3. Digital archives, with photographs of First World War poetry

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections
4. Digital history/dates of First World War events

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/ww1_chron.cfm Reading assignments: (d/nd= detailed/non-detailed) Rupert Brooke: The Soldier (nd) Wilfred Owen: Anthem for Doomed Youth (d), Spring Offensive (d) John McCrae : In Flanders Fields (d) Isaac Rosenberg: Break of Day in the Trenches(nd), Dead Mans Dump (d) Siegfred Sassoon : Attack (d), The Hero (nd) Thomas Hardy: In Time of The Breaking of Nations (nd) Robert Graves: Its a Queer Time (nd) Rudyard Kipling: If (nd) Rabindranath Tagore: The Storm- Crossing (Jharer Kheya/ Balaka) (d), The Trumpet (d)

Kazi Nazrul Islam: Bidrohi (d) D.H. Lawrence: War and Peace (d) May Herschel-Clarke: The Mother (d) Vera Brittain: Perhaps (d) Winifred Letts: The Spires of Oxford (d) Jessie Pope: Whos for the Game (d)

Stephen Spender: The War God (nd) W.H. Auden: Here war is Simple (d) Dylan Thomas: A Refusal to Mourn the Death (d) Louis Mac Neice: Prayer Before Birth (d)

The Soldier

by 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. ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
SPRING OFFENSIVE

1 Halted against the shade of a last hill, 2 They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease 3 And, finding comfortable chests and knees 4 Carelessly slept. But many there stood still 5 To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge, 6 Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.

7 Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled 8 By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge, 9 For though the summer oozed into their veins 10 Like the injected drug for their bones' pains, 11 Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass, 12 Fearfully flashed the sky's mysterious glass.

13 Hour after hour they ponder the warm field-14 And the far valley behind, where the buttercups 15 Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up, 16 Where even the little brambles would not yield, 17 But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands; 18 They breathe like trees unstirred.

19 Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word 20 At which each body and its soul begird 21 And tighten them for battle. No alarms

22 Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste-23 Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced 24 The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done. 25 O larger shone that smile against the sun,-26 Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.

27 So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together 28 Over an open stretch of herb and heather 29 Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned 30 With fury against them; and soft sudden cups 31 Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes 32 Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.

33 Of them who running on that last high place 34 Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up 35 On the hot blast and fury of hell's upsurge, 36 Or plunged and fell away past this world's verge, 37 Some say God caught them even before they fell.

38 But what say such as from existence' brink 39 Ventured but drave too swift to sink. 40 The few who rushed in the body to enter hell, 41 And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames 42 With superhuman inhumanities, 43 Long-famous glories, immemorial shames-44 And crawling slowly back, have by degrees 45 Regained cool peaceful air in wonder-46 Why speak they not of comrades that went under?

Wilfred Owen

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, May 1915 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 hands 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.

Break of Day in the Trenches

By Isaac Rosenberg
The darkness crumbles away It is the same old druid Time as ever, Only a live thing leaps my hand, A queer sardonic rat, As I pull the parapet's poppy To stick behind my ear. Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew Your cosmopolitan sympathies, Now you have touched this English hand You will do the same to a German Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure To cross the sleeping green between. It seems you inwardly grin as you pass Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes, Less chanced than you for life, Bonds to the whims of murder, Sprawled in the bowels of the earth, The torn fields of France. What do you see in our eyes At the shrieking iron and flame Hurled through still heavens? What quaver -what heart aghast? Poppies whose roots are in men's veins Drop, and are ever dropping; But mine in my ear is safe, Just a little white with the dust.

Dead Mans Dump Isaac Rosenberg The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched,

Their shut mouths made no moan. They lie there huddled, friend and foeman, Man born of man, and born of woman, And shells go crying over them From night till night and now. Earth has waited for them, All the time of their growth Fretting for their decay: Now she has them at last! In the strength of their strength Suspendedstopped and held. What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit? Earth! have they gone into you! Somewhere they must have gone, And flung on your hard back Is their soul's sack Emptied of God-ancestralled essences. Who hurled them out? Who hurled? None saw their spirits' shadow shake the grass, Or stood aside for the half used life to pass Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth, When the swift iron burning bee Drained the wild honey of their youth. What of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre, Walk, our usual thoughts untouched, Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed, Immortal seeming ever? Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us, A fear may choke in our veins And the startled blood may stop. The air is loud with death, The dark air spurts with fire, The explosions ceaseless are. Timelessly now, some minutes past, Those dead strode time with vigorous life, Till the shrapnel called `An end!' But not to all. In bleeding pangs Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home, Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts. Maniac Earth! howling and flying, your bowel Seared by the jagged fire, the iron love, The impetuous storm of savage love. Dark Earth! dark Heavens! swinging in chemic smoke,

What dead are born when you kiss each soundless soul With lightning and thunder from your mined heart, Which man's self dug, and his blind fingers loosed? A man's brains splattered on A stretcher-bearer's face; His shook shoulders slipped their load, But when they bent to look again The drowning soul was sunk too deep For human tenderness. They left this dead with the older dead, Stretched at the cross roads. Burnt black by strange decay Their sinister faces lie, The lid over each eye, The grass and coloured clay More motion have than they, Joined to the great sunk silences. Here is one not long dead; His dark hearing caught our far wheels, And the choked soul stretched weak hands To reach the living word the far wheels said, The blood-dazed intelligence beating for light, Crying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels Swift for the end to break Or the wheels to break, Cried as the tide of the world broke over his sight. Will they come? Will they ever come? Even as the mixed hoofs of the mules, The quivering-bellied mules, And the rushing wheels all mixed With his tortured upturned sight. So we crashed round the bend, We heard his weak scream, We heard his very last sound, And our wheels grazed his dead face. Attack by Siegfried Sassoon
At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun In the wild purple of the glowering sun, Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one, Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.

The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear, Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire. Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, They leave their trenches, going over the top, While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, Flounders in mud. O Jesu, make it stop!

The Hero Siegfried Sassoon

"Jack fell as he'd have wished," the Mother said, And folded up the letter that she'd read. "The Colonel writes so nicely." Something broke In the tired voice that quavered to a choke. She half looked up. "We mothers are so proud Of our dead soldiers." Then her face was bowed. Quietly the Brother Officer went out. He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies That she would nourish all her days, no doubt. For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy, Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy. He thought how "Jack," cold-footed, useless swine, Had panicked down the trench that night the mine Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried To get sent home; and how, at last, he died, Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care Except that lonely woman with white hair.

In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'

Only a man harrowing clods In a slow silent walk With an old horse that stumbles and nods Half asleep as they stalk. Only thin smoke without flame From the heaps of couch-grass; Yet this will go onward the same Though Dynasties pass. Yonder a maid and her wight Come whispering by: War's annals will cloud into night

Ere their story die.

Thomas Hardy It's a Queer Time

Robert Graves

It's hard to know if you're alive or dead When steel and fire go roaring through your head. One moment you'll be crouching at your gun Traversing, mowing heaps down half in fun: The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast No time to think - leave all - and off you go ... To Treasure Island where the Spice winds blow, To lovely groves of mango, quince and lime Breathe no good-bye, but ho, for the Red West! It's a queer time. You're charging madly at them yelling "Fag!" When somehow something gives and your feet drag. You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain And find ... you're digging tunnels through the hay In the Big Barn, 'cause it's a rainy day. Oh, springy hay, and lovely beams to climb! You're back in the old sailor suit again. It's a queer time. Or you'll be dozing safe in your dug-out A great roar - the trench shakes and falls about You're struggling, gasping, struggling, then ... hullo! Elsie comes tripping gaily down the trench, Hanky to nose - that lyddite makes a stench Getting her pinafore all over grime. Funny! because she died ten years ago! It's a queer time. The trouble is, things happen much too quick; Up jump the Boches, rifles thump and click, You stagger, and the whole scene fades away: Even good Christians don't like passing straight From Tipperary or their Hymn of Hate To Alleluiah-chanting, and the chime Of golden harps ... and ... I'm not well today ... It's a queer time.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) IF If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream - and not make dreams your master, If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son! David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) PEACE AND WAR People always make war when they say they love peace. The loud love of peace makes one quiver more than any battle-cry. Why should one love peace? It is so obviously vile to make war. Loud peace propaganda makes war seem imminent. It is a form of war, even self-assertion and being wise for other people. Let people be wise for themselves. And anyhow Nobody can be wise except on rare occasions, like getting married or dying. Its bad taste to be wise all the time, like being at a perpetual funeral. For everyday use, give me somebody whimsical, with not too much purpose in life, Then we shant have war, and we neednt talk about peace.

Rabindranath from Gitanjali

When I leave from hence let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable. I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus that expands on the ocean of light and thus am I blessed - let this be my parting word. In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play, and here have I caught sight of him that is formless. My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch; and if the end comes here, let it come - let this be my parting word.

The Oarsmen
Do you hear the roar of death through the listening hush of distance. And that awful call midst fire-floods and poison clouds and the wrestling of earth and sky in mortal combat. - The Captain's call to steer the ship towards a shore yet unnamed? For that time is over - that stagnant time in the port Where the same old store is bought and sold in an endless round. Where dead things gather in the exhaustion and emptiness of truth. They wake up in sudden fear and ask 'Comrades, what is the hour of the night? When shall open the golden gate of the new dawn? The murky clouds have blotted out all stars Who are there to see the beckoning finger of the day. They rush out with oars in hand, the beds are emptied in the house, the mother prays, the silent wife watches by the door. The wail of separation sweeps the sky like rushing wings of night birds, And there rings the Captain's voice in the dark, 'Come, sailors, for the time in the haven is over!' All the black evils in the world have overflowed their banks, Yet, oarsmen, take your places with the blessing of sorrow in your souls! Whom do you blame, brothers! Bow your heads down! The sin has been yours and ours. The heat growing in the heart of God for ages The cowardice of the weak, the arrogance of the strong, the greed of fate prosperity, the rancor of the deprived, pride of race, and insult to man Has burst God's peace, raging in storm. Like a ripe pod, let the tempest break its heart into pieces, scattering thunders, Stop your bluster of abuse and self-praise, my friends, And with the calm of silent prayer on your brows sail forward to the shore of the new world.

We have known sins and evils every day and death we have met. They pass over our world like clouds mocking us with their transient light night laughter. Suddenly they have stopped, growing stupendous, And men must stand before them saying 'We do not fear you, O Monster! For we have lived every moment of our life by conquering you, 'And we die with the faith that peace is true, and God is true, and true is the eternal One!'

If the deathless dwell not in the heart of death, If glad wisdom bloom not bursting the sheath of sorrow, If aim do not die of its own revealment, If pride break not under its load of decoration, Then whence comes the hope that drives these men from their homes in [...]ars rushing to their death in the morning light? Shall the value of the martyrs' blood and mothers' tears be utterly lost in the dust of the earth, not buying Heaven with their price? And when Man bursts his moral bounds, is not the Boundless revealed that moment?

The Trumpet
The trumpet lies in the dust. The wind is weary, the light is dead. Ah, the evil day! Come fighters, carrying your flags and singer with your songs! Come pilgrims, hurrying on your journey! The trumpet lies in the dust waiting for us. I was on my way to the temple with my evening offerings.

Seeking for the heaven of rest after the day's dusty toil; Hoping my hurts would be healed and stains in my garments washed white, When I found thy trumpet lying in the dust.

Has it not been the time for me to light my lamp? Has my evening not come to bring me sleep? O thou blood-red rose, where have my poppies faded? I was certain my wanderings were over and my debts all paid When suddenly I came upon thy trumpet lying in the dust.

Strike my drowsy heart with the spell of youth! Let my joy in life blaze up in fire. Let the shafts of awakening fly piercing the heart of night and a thrill of dread shake the palsied blindness, I have come to raise thy trumpet from the dust.

Sleep is no more for me - my walk shall be through showers of arrows. Some shall run out of their houses and come to my side - some shall weep, Some in their beds shall toss and groan in dire dreams: For to-night thy trumpet shall be sounded.

From thee I had asked peace only to find shame. Now I stand before thee - help me to don my armour! Let hard blows of trouble strike fire into my life. Let my heart beat in pain - beating the drum of thy victory. My hands shall be utterly emptied to take up thy trumpet.

Vera Brittain (1893-1970) Perhaps Perhaps some day the sun will shine again, And I shall see that still the skies are blue, And feel once more I do not live in vain, Although bereft of You. Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay, And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet, Though You have passed away. Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright, And crimson roses once again be fair, And autumn harvest fields a rich delight, Although You are not there. Perhaps some day I shall not shrink in pain To see the passing of the dying year,

And listen to Christmas songs again, Although You cannot hear.' But though kind Time may many joys renew, There is one greatest joy I shall not know Again, because my heart for loss of You Was broken, long ago.
(To R A L)Roland Aubrey Leighton (1895-1915).

Jessie Pope (1868-1941) Whos for the game, the biggest thats played, The red crashing game of a fight? Wholl grip and tackle the job unafraid? And who thinks hed rather sit tight? Wholl toe the line for the signal to Go!? Wholl give his country a hand? Who wants a turn to himself in the show? And who wants a seat in the stand? Who knows it wont be a picnic not muchYet eagerly shoulders a gun? Who would much rather come back with a crutch Than lie low and be out of the fun? Come along, lads But youll come on all right For theres only one course to pursue, Your country is up to her neck in a fight, And shes looking and calling for you.

Winifred M. Letts (1882-1972) The Spires of Oxford

I SAW the spires of Oxford As I was passing by, The gray spires of Oxford Against the pearl-gray sky. My heart was with the Oxford men Who went abroad to die. The years go fast in Oxford, The golden years and gay, The hoary Colleges look down On careless boys at play. But when the bugles sounded

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war They put their games away. They left the peaceful river, The cricket-field, the quad, The shaven lawns of Oxford, To seek a bloody sod They gave their merry youth away For country and for God. God rest you, happy gentlemen, Who laid your good lives down, Who took the khaki and the gun Instead of cap and gown. God bring you to a fairer place Than even Oxford town.

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May Herschel-Clarke (1850-1950) The Mother Written after reading Rupert Brooke's sonnet, "The Soldier": If you should die, think only this of me In that still quietness where is space for thought, Where parting, loss and bloodshed shall not be, And men may rest themselves and dream of nought: That in some place a mystic mile away One whom you loved has drained the bitter cup Till there is nought to drink; has faced the day Once more, and now, has raised the standard up. And think, my son, with eyes grown clear and dry She lives as though for ever in your sight, Loving the things you loved, with heart aglow For country, honour, truth, traditions high, --Proud that you paid their price. (And if some night Her heart should break--well, lad, you will not know. The War God Stephen Spender Why cannot the one good Benevolent feasible Final dove, descend? And the wheat be divide? And the soldiers sent home? And the barriers torn down? And the enemies forgiven? And there be no retribution?

Because the conqueror Is victim of his own power That hammers his heart From fear of former fear-When those he now vanquishes Destroyed his hero-father And surrounded his cradle With fabled anguishes. Today his day of victory Weeps scalding lead anxiety Lest children of these slain Prove dragon teeth (sown Now their sun goes down) To rise up one morning Stain the sky with blood And avenge their fathers again. The defeated, filled with lead, On the helpless field, May dream the pious reasons Of mercy, but alas They know what they did In their own high seasons. The world is the world And not the slain Nor the slayer, forgive. There's no heaven above To make passionate histories End with endless love. Yet under wild seas Of chafing despairs Love's need does not cease. Here War Is Simple by W H Auden Here war is simple like a monument: A telephone is speaking to a man; Flags on a map assert that troops were sent; A boy brings milk in bowls. There is a plan For living men in terror of their lives, Who thirst at nine who were to thirst at noon, And can be lost and are, and miss their wives, And, unlike an idea, can die too soon.

But ideas can be true although men die, And we can watch a thousand faces Made active by one lie: And maps can really point to places Where life is evil now: Nanking. Dachau. A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London by Dylan Thomas

Never until the mankind making Bird beast and flower Fathering and all humbling darkness Tells with silence the last light breaking And the still hour Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round Zion of the water bead And the synagogue of the ear of corn Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound Or sow my salt seed In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child's death. I shall not murder The mankind of her going with a grave truth Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath

With any further Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter, Robed in the long friends, The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother, Secret by the unmourning water Of the riding Thames. After the first death, there is no other.

Prayer Before Birth Louis Macneice

I am not yet born; O hear me. Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul come near me. I am not yet born, console me. I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me. I am not yet born; provide me With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me. I am not yet born; forgive me For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me, my treason engendered by traitors beyond me, my life when they murder by means of my hands, my death when they live me. I am not yet born; rehearse me In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when

old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom and the beggar refuses my gift and my children curse me. I am not yet born; O hear me, Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God come near me. I am not yet born; O fill me With strength against those who would freeze my humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton, would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with one face, a thing, and against all those who would dissipate my entirety, would blow me like thistledown hither and thither or hither and thither like water held in the hands would spill me. Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me. Otherwise kill me.