Owen's 1914 shares a lot of similarities with a poet who is in many ways the Anti-Owen (cultured, patriotic, really tight with his poetic structure). However, there are also many real contrasts. Both Owen and Brooke were influenced by Shelley. Owen was particularly influenced by this rather interesting poem by Shelley. The Wilfred Owen society says: Owen knew his Shelley. He’d been given the complete poetical works for his 21st birthday on 18 March 1914. In THE REVOLT OF ISLAM, canto 9 stanza 25 he would have read ‘This is the winter of the world; and here We die, even as the winds of Autumn fade…’ Which he was to recall in a letter written on his 23rd birthday, ‘Now is the winter of the world….’ words which might have been even more apt a year later during his experiences in the trenches. Homework: As evidence of wider reading, which you can drop into a response: 1) find the similarities and differences. 2) In what ways is Owen as supportive of gallant sacrifice as Brooke? In what ways is he more ambiguous? 3) What does this show you about what Owen sees as the role of the poet at this point in his writing? Divergent thinking opportunity: "verse wails"...? 4) Find out about the construction of a sonnet (Petrachan, Shakespearan and other forms if possible). Don't get hung up on the rhyme scheme - find out what the basic components are. 5) How is Owen being traditional and rebellious in his use of sonnet form? Consider the volta and the resolution (or not - very ambivalent) in the sestet in your answer. 6) Now you've looked at a bunch of Owen's poetry, what can you see that is typical of his style and approach in a poem which is in many ways different? 7) Create a short grid showing similarities and differences with other key poems. 1914 -- Wilfred Owen (probably begun around December 1914/early 1915 and then possibly revisited in 1917 when he met Sassoon)
War broke: and now the Winter of the world With perishing great darkness closes in. The foul tornado, centred at Berlin, Is over all the width of Europe whirled, Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin. The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled. For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece, And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome, An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home, A slow grand age, and rich with all increase. But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed. |
Rupert Brooke was a glamourous, popular, patriotic product of the middle class school system (Rugby School). He volunteered to fight but died of sepsis from an infected mosquito bite and never saw action.
An extract of Brooke's 1914 poem (Canto V: The Soldier) 1914 -- Rupert Brooke (published March-May 1915) I. PEACE Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary, Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move, And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary, And all the little emptiness of love! Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there, Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending, Naught broken save this body, lost but breath; Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there But only agony, and that has ending; And the worst friend and enemy is but Death. II. SAFETY Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest He who has found our hid security, Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?' We have found safety with all things undying, The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying, And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth. We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing. We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever. War knows no power. Safe shall be my going, Secretly armed against all death's endeavour; Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall; And if these poor limbs die, safest of all. III. THE DEAD Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That men call age; and those who would have been, Their sons, they gave, their immortality. Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth, Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain. Honour has come back, as a king, to earth, And paid his subjects with a royal wage; And Nobleness walks in our ways again; And we have come into our heritage. IV. THE DEAD These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended. There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after, Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, A width, a shining peace, under the night. V. THE SOLDIER 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. |