(17) WAR POETRY – WILFRED OWENS

 

“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori”.

 

War poetry has a long history in literature – indeed, arguably the longest, predating written literature itself, originating at least with Homer’s Iliad. I say at least because I suspect that among the earliest recitals of the origins of poetry itself – around the campfires of our Paleolithic tribal ancestors but faded and forgotten with those tribes by the Neolithic, let alone the Bronze Age – were war chants against tribal enemies.

Even if they weren’t, then I’d certainly propose that among the earliest poems of the Bronze Age were war poems celebrating the feats of kings or warriors, only those didn’t survive as the Iliad did to become the rosy-fingered dawn of Western literature. For that matter, I’d argue much of the Bible, particularly the Psalms, are war poetry – battle hymns of the kingdom, as it were.

We probably must go to the nineteenth century and the Crimean War for the next most famous war poem – Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade – although I’d also argue that there’s a rich vein of American war poetry to be mined all the way back to the Revolution.

However, there’s one war that everyone thinks of for war poetry and war poems – which is of course the First World War, primarily as written by British war poets on the Western Front, even if it more evokes the trope of war poetry than prompts recollection of any individual poets, let alone poems.

There is one World War One poet I recall over all other such poets and that is Wilfred Owen, who almost made it through the war but was killed in action at 25 years of age on 4 November 1918, just a week before armistice. He wrote quite a few, dare I call them, bangers – the titles of “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Futility” give away the tone of his poetry – but the one stands out for me is the one I quoted, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, the title of course coming from the Latin verse written by the Roman poet Horace, translating as “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”.

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)