Introduction

The Poetry of the First World War

In this course, Dr Peter Howarth (Queen Mary University of London) explores the poetry of the First World War. We begin in the first module by providing a broad introduction to war poetry, thinking in particular about the basic conflict between war and poetry. In the following three modules, we consider the idea that some of the poetry written during the First World War might be seen as a means of processing grief, and we look in turn at three poems in relation to three of the five stages of grief – bargaining (Margaret Cole’s ‘The Leaves are Falling’), denial (Rupert Brooke’s ‘The Soldier’), and depression (Wilfred Owen’s ‘Futility’). In the fifth module, we consider two satires on the war – Siegfried Sassoon’s ‘The Hero’ and E. E. Cummings’ ‘Next to of course god america i’ – before turning in the sixth and seventh modules to two poems that stand as public protests to the war: Wilfrid Wilson Gibson’s ‘The Conscript’ and Wilfred Owen’s ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’. In the eighth module, we think about the ‘conflict’ between the poets of the First World War with some the great poets of the past – looking in particular at the poetry of Wilfred Owen (‘Exposure’) and John Keats – before turning in the ninth and final module to consider the theme of guilt in one of Wilfred Owen’s most famous poems, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’.

Introduction

In this module, we provide a broad introduction to our discussion of the poetry of the First World War by thinking about the basic conflict between war and poetry. To what extent is it possible to capture the senseless chaos of war in the ordered rhymes and rhythms of poetry?