After Blenheim
‘After Blenheim’ is an anti-war poem written by Robert Southey.
The poem is in the form of a ballad, narrating the events of the
famous Battle of Blenheim (1704).
The first stanza sets the atmosphere and the tone for narration
and reflection. It was a summer evening and the place was the
cottage of an elderly farmer named Kaspar. He was sitting in
the sun before his cottage door and his little granddaughter
Wilhelmine was playing on the field. She saw her brother
Peterkin roll a round object which he had found while playing
beside the stream. He enquired of his grandfather, and came to
know that the round object was the skull of a soldier who had
died fighting the battle of Blenheim. Hereafter, Kaspar, in his
description of the battle, talks of burned homes, civilian
casualties and rotting corpses, even of his own father being
rendered homeless with his wife and children. Yet, all the while,
he speaks of the battle as a ‘great victory’, showing the
ignorance of the common man of the motives of war.
War, as seen in this poem, represents the worst form of human
behaviour. The skull that Peterkin finds and the skulls that are
dug up by Kaspar’s ploughshare are a silent testimony to the
destruction of war. The perpetrators of war cannot and will not
suppress their ambitions. Common people are made to believe
of a certain greatness attached to war. In this poem, the poet
reveals the true picture of war, unmasked by the notion of
heroism. As Kaspar goes on with his story, we slowly see how
cruel and devastating the ‘great victory’ was. The war itself was
terrible – fire and sword destroyed everything throughout the
country. Many pregnant mothers and new-born babies died.
After the battle ended, thousands of bodies of the dead soldiers
lay ‘rotting in the sun’ – the ghastly nature of war laid out, open
for everyone to see.
Despite all this, Kaspar says that the Battle of Blenheim was a
‘famous victory’. This is ironical as nothing can be called a
victory with so many people dying. The masses are lured by the
leaders into believing the importance of a victory achieved in
war than its purpose and benefits. Kaspar keeps referring to the
war as a ‘great’ or ‘famous’ victory, ignorant as he is of the true
motive behind it. Ordinary people have hardly anything to do
with war. International diplomacy, politics and war are matters
which are cut off from the lives of the commoners.. In an
outburst of praise for the heroes who won the war, old Kaspar
reveals the typical inability of an ordinary citizen to grasp the
reason why the war took place. “But everybody said..” – this is
the common attitude of the ordinary citizens like Kaspar. They
tend to believe whatever is told by the rest, all the lies and
false propaganda popularized by the political heads. They have
been convinced that war is ‘great’ and that it brings glory and
upholds heroism. In truth, all the ideas about greatness and
heroism are but fake.
Here, Kaspar becomes the representative of the ignorant
commoners and his grandchildren become the voice of the poet
through whom, he speaks his message. The two children, who
are uncorrupted by adult thinking, can readily perceive war for
what it is, that is, death and destruction. They find the war
‘wicked’ and hit the right cord by questioning ‘what good came
of it at last?’ – the ultimate question. Although old Kaspar
knows of the destruction brought by war, he keeps harping
about the great victory. On the other hand, the children who do
not grasp the so-called greatness of war, which is an adult
delicate philosophy, simply see it as wicked.
