The British War Poets

This particular group of poems differs greatly than the other poems we’ve previously studied.  These poems are recollections of the authors’ experiences as soldiers in World War I and are grim and realistic concerning the matter of death.  Siegfried Sasson’s “Blighters” is the contrast between the horrific experiences of battle and civilians’ experiences at a comfortable and safe distance.  While soldiers are at war, the normal lives of civilians continue. It is as if they are completely oblivious to the carnage that their sons, fathers, or brothers are enduring.  You are also lead to believe that their attitudes about the war and the casualties are unsympathetic from the following lines from the poem:  “I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls/ Lurching to rag-time tunes, or “Home, sweet Home/ And there’d be no more jokes in the Music-halls/ To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume”.  Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” is another brutal and horrifying experience of the war.  Owen grimly describes watching a fellow soldier die from Mustard gas and just how it affects him.  The line “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, / He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning” provides such evidence.