Module 4 Handout 1 (5V)

Literary history: English Literature
Module 4: 20th century: handout 1 (5V)
Britain in the Great War (1914-1918)

History
At the end of the nineteenth century
England was still the leading world
power. World War I put an abrupt end
to the long period of ease and comfort
the British upper and middle classes had
enjoyed and become accustomed to.
This war, even though it was won by
Britain and its allies, shocked the
country out of its Victorian attitude of
greatness and superiority. When World
War I broke out in August 1914, all
participating parties expected the
fighting to be brief. Instead, the German
advance was halted in Flanders and in
northern France. Both armies – the
Germans and Austrians on the one side,
the French, English and Belgians on the
other side – dug themselves in. World
War I was the first war that was fought
with modern weapons (tanks, U-boats).
But the tactics used were still those of
traditional warfare, with massive
attacks of light infantry against heavy
artillery. The result was a stalemated
trench war that led to many casualties.
Trenches from World War 1
Propaganda
Somehow the British government had to against the strong (Germany), and that it
persuade the people that in spite of the was fighting for noble causes such as
disastrous results, the war was still democracy and freedom. When the war
worth fighting. The nation was told that was over, more than a million British
it was defending the weak (Belgium) soldiers had been killed and about 20
1
million in total. The romanticism and

enthusiasm of the early days of the war
quickly turned into despair and
nightmare.
QUESTIONS
1. Describe how and why the British
attitude towards the war shifted.
2. Why were so many lives lost in World
War I?
Trench Warfare in WW1
The war poets

Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) the war sonnets that made him famous
Many of Britain’s brightest young men, virtually overnight. His passionately
often with public school backgrounds, patriotic poems, written at the outbreak
volunteered for the army. The poets of the war, reflect the early war
among them wrote patriotically inspired perspective when people were still
verse. One of these poets was Rupert optimistic and idealistic. His sonnets
Brooke who took part in an unsuccessful provide a great insight into how people
naval expedition to Antwerp. On leave in can romanticize war when they haven’t
England, in December 1914, he wrote yet experienced it. Early in 1915 he died
2
an abrupt death from dysentery and

blood poisoning aboard a military vessel
while serving in the Royal Navy. Brooke
became a symbol in England of the
tragic loss of talented youth during the
war.
Rupert Brooke
The Soldier (1914)
If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever 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.
QUESTIONS on The Soldier

1. How will “some corner of a foreign field” be made “forever England”?
2. What two aspects of the soldier are dealt with in the sonnet (octave and sestet)?
3. What is the “richer dust” that the poet talks about in line 4?
4. What is the mood of the poem?
5. What do you think is the poet’s attitude to death?
The Soldier
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Wilfred Owen’s intellectual life of comfort was changed dramatically when he joined the
army voluntarily and experienced a number of traumatic war experiences. He was hit by
a trench mortar and lay unconscious for days on end among the remains of a fellow
3
officer, after which he was hospitalized and diagnosed with shell shock. While home on
leave recovering from his wounds, he read a patriotic poem in The Times, glorifying the
self-sacrifice of the British soldiers. In reply Owen wrote Dulce et Decorum Est, in which
he describes the hideous results of a gas attack, aiming to shatter the illusion that to die
in war is romantic or glorious. His shocking and realistic poetry on the horror of the
trenches and gas warfare stood in stark contrast with the prevailing public perception of
war at the time as well as the romanticized poems by Rupert Brooke.
In 1918 Owen returned to the front where he was killed in action in November 1918, a
week before the end of the war. For his courage and leadership he was awarded the
Military Cross and promoted to the rank of Lieutenant the day after his death. A small
consolation to his mother who received word of his death on the day the war ended.
Wilfred Owen
Dulce et Decorum Est (1917/18)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
4
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
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.
Soldiers in the Great War
QUESTIONS on Dulce et Decorum Est

1. Wilfred Owen was diagnosed with Shell Shock. Explain.
2. What impression do you get of the soldiers from reading the first stanza?
3. What is the “thick green light” in line 13 referring to?
4. Describe what happens in lines 10 to 16.
5. What did they do with the gassed man? What picture does the poet ask the
reader to visualize in lines 18-24?
6. What kind of people is Owen addressing when he says “My friend” in
line 25?
7. What is “the old Lie”?
8. Translate the Latin title (from Horace).
9. Compare this poem to The Soldier. In what ways are they different? Describe the
opposing moods and attitudes towards the war.
10. Does the knowledge that both poets were brutally killed after writing these poems
affect the impression it makes on you as a reader?
Dulce et Decorum Est Dulce Et Decorum Est Animation

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Literary history: English Literature

Module 4: 20th century: handout 1 (5V)

Britain in the Great War (1914-1918)

Trenches from World War 1

million in total. The romanticism and

Trench Warfare in WW1

The war poets

an abrupt death from dysentery and

The Soldier (1914)

If I should die, think only this of me:

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

QUESTIONS on The Soldier

Dulce et Decorum Est (1917/18)

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Soldiers in the Great War

QUESTIONS on Dulce et Decorum Est

Dulce et Decorum Est Dulce Et Decorum Est Animation

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