English Poetry of the First World War 9781400877355

Table of contents :
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND
II. THE EARLY POETS
RUPERT BROOKE
JULIAN GRENFELL
ROBERT NICHOLS
CHARLES SORLEY
III. REALISM AND SATIRE: SIEGFRIED SASSOON
IV. UNDER TONES : EDMUND BLUNDEN
V. POETRY AND PITY: WILFRED OWEN
VI. POETRY AND PITY: ISAAC ROSENBERG
VII. THE "HIGHER REALITY": HERBERT READ
VIII. THE HEROIC VISION: DAVID JONES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Citation preview

2 ¾ ENGLISH POETRY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

ENGLISH POETRY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR A STUDY IN THE EVOLUTION OF LYRIC AND NARRATIVE FORM

BY JOHN H. JOHNSTON

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 1964

Copyright © 1964 by Princeton University Press All Rights Reserved L.C. Card: 63-16235 • Publication of this book has been aided by the Ford Foundation program to support publication, through university presses, of works in the humanities and social sciences. Chapter VIII is an expanded version of an article that appeared in The Review of Politics, Vol. 24, pp. 62-87. 35- 5°- 56, 61, 77, 99, 161-62, 164, 199, 223, 232, 33738; effects on early World War I poetry, 16-19

INDEX Georgian Poetry, 4-5, 25 Georgian poets, 3-5, 9, 18, 158, 177, 210, 217, 217-18, 254, 338 Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson, 4, 8 Gill, Eric, 285 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 56 Gosse, Edmund, 80, 85 Graves, Robert, 43, 76-78, 80, 81, 82, 89, 97, 114, 116, 250, 285; Fairies and Fusiliers, 58η, -j6; Good-bye to All That, 11, 81, 88n, 114, 182η; "A Dead Boche," 76-78; "Sorley's Weather," 58η Grenfell, Julian, 25, 36-42, 42, 45, 55, 60, 63, 244; "Into Battle," 38-42, 50, 60 Grenfell, William, 36 Grenfell, William Henry (Baron Desborough), 36 Gryphon, 254, 258 Harding, Denys, 213η Hardy, Thomas, 8, 23-24, 56, 58, 63, 68, 133, 167, 232; Satires of Circumstance, 56, 92; The Dy­ nasts, 56, 63, 111, 167, 232; "Men Who March Away," 23; "The Souls of the Slain," 69 Hassall, Christopher, A Biography of Edward Marsh, 37η, 43η, 85η Hawthornden Prize, 116, 285 heroic poetry, 65, 252, 282-83, 284, 286, 300; characteristic qualities of, 9-16, 51, 78, 133, 135, 206, 227, 329-30; World War I, 30237 Hodgson, Ralph, 253 Hodgson, William Noel, 72, 90; Verse and Prose in Peace and 'War, 72η; "Before Action," 72 Homer, 306, 314; Iliad, 56; Odys­ sey, 56 Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 208, 251, 327-28, 337; The Notebooks and Papers, 328 Housman, A. E., 167-68, 186-87; A Shropshire Lad, 167; A Shrop­ shire Lad, Lyric I, "1887," 167η; Lyric III, "The Recruit," 167η;

Lyric XIX, "To an Athlete Dying Young," 186-87; Lyric XXII, 167η; Lyric XXXIV, "The New Mistress," 167η; Lyric XXXV, 167η; Lyric XLIX, 62; Lyric LVI, "The Day of Battle," 167η Hulme, Τ. E., 223η Hydra, The, 160, 166η Ibsen, Henrik, 56 Imagism, 223, 246, 255-61 Imagist poetry, 281 Imagist poets, 223, 251-52, 253, 254 Inge, Dean William, 29η James, Henry, 5 Jena, University of, 54 Jerrold, Douglas, 110; The Lie about the War, 15 Jones, David, 238, 250-52, 284-340; The Anathemata, 285; In Paren­ thesis, 283, 251-52, 284-337 Joyce, James, 322, 323 Keats, John, 157, 158, 169, 171; "Ode to a Nightingale," 169, 171 Keeling, Frederick, 26 Kipling, Rudyard, 40, 63, 107-08, !3 1 . !97 "Kitchener's Army," 73 Kluck, General Alexander von, 22 Leavis, F. R., New Bearings in Eng­ lish Poetry, 27 Ledwidge, Francis, 128 Leeds, University of, 253 Loos, Battle of, 54, 76 Louvain, University of, 126 lyric poetry, Georgian, 6, 8-9, 9, 16, 35, 50-51, 53, 91-92; late nine­ teenth-century, 8, 217; nineteenthcentury, 164, 197, 199; romantic, 6-7, 7-8; Victorian, 7-8. See also World War I poetry, lyric mode Mabinogion, The, 304 MacNeice, Louis, 208 Malory, Sir Thomas, Morte d'Arthur, 304

307,

321;

INDEX Manning, Frederic, 245; Her Pri­ vates We, 101 Marconi, Guglielmo, 5 Marlborough College, 54-55, 79 Marsh, Sir Edward, 4, 25, 27, 37, 43, 80, 85η, n6, 164, 211, 213, 214, 229, 236, 238, 247; Rupert Brooke: A Memoir, 26, 28η, 36 Marvell, Andrew, 28 Masefield, John, 8, 55, 56, 58, 68, 80 Massingham, H. }., 116 Meynell, Viola, Julian Grenfell, 37η Military Cross, 81, 82, 115, 165, Milton, John, 321 Missa pro Defunctis, 202η Montague, C. E., 23, 29; Disen­ chantment, 22, 71, 182η Moore, T. Sturge, Some Soldier Poets, 29, 41 Morning Post (London), 91 Morrell, Lady Ottoline, 81, 82, 86 Morrell, Sir Philip, 81 Murry, John Middleton, 82, 98-99, 126-27; The Evolution of an In­ tellectual, 98η, 126-27 narrative poetry, Georgian, 8; heroic, 12, 65. See also World War I poetry, narrative mode Nash, Paul, 11 in, 328 Nation, The, 166η, 182, 186 National Institute of Arts and Let­ ters, 285-86 Nennius, 307 Nevinson, C. R. W., Paint and Prejudice, 11 in Newbolt, Sir Henry, 63; "Vital Lampada," 107-08 New Numbers, 29η Nichols, Robert, 24, 25, 42-53, 55, 70, 85, 87, 98, 112, 114, 146η, 211, 212, 236, 244, 250, 252; Anthology of War Poetry, 19141918, 27, 29, 44; Ardours and Endurances, 43-53, 94; Invoca­ tion: War Poems and Others, 43; "Assault, The," 49-50, 52, 97,

293; "At the Wars," 47; "Battery Moving Up," 47-48; "Behind the Lines," 47; "Boy," 52; "Com­ rades," 47, 51-52; "The Day's March," 45-46; "Deliverance," 52; "Farewell to Place of Com­ fort," 44, 45; "Fulfilment," 47; "The Last Morning," 47; "Near­ er," 46; "Night Bombardment," 48-49, 240; "Our Dead," 52-53; "Out of the Trenches," 47 Nicholson, Frank, 160 novel, nineteenth-century, 6, 7 objectivity, Imagist poetry, 254, 256; heroic poetry, 9, 12, 19, 329; World War I narrative prose, 279-80; World War I poetry, 13, 47, 197-98, 201-02, 252, 269, 283, 291, 298, 305, 321, 324, 328-35 Officers' Training Corps, 253 Osborn, E. B., The Muse in Arms, 43η Owen, Harold, Journey from Ob­ scurity, 157η Owen, Wilfred, 18, 24, 47, 53, 70, 75, 78, 83, 84, 90, 93, 101, 112, 113, 117, 147, 149, 153, 155209, 210-12, 222, 229, 233, 24445, 246, 247, 251, 259, 261, 262, 263, 281-82, 284, 333, 335, 337, 338; Poems, 117η, 157η; "Pref­ ace," 163-65, 179, 199; "Table of Contents," 163, 194, 200, 203; "A Terre," 175, 181-82; "And I Must Go," 185, 199; "Anthem for Doomed Youth," 175-77, 178, 182, 202; "Apologia pro Poemate Meo," 179-81, 192, 266; "Arms and the Boy," 188, 190; "Asleep," 177-79; "At a Calvary near the Ancre," 200, 202-03; "Ballad of Purchase Moneys," 167, 172; "The Calls," 185. 199; "The Chances," 175; "Le Christianisme," 200, 202-03; "Con­ scious," 186; "The Dead-Beat," 175; "Disabled," 186-87, 206;

INDEX

"Dulce et Decorum Est," 11, 174-75; "The End," 203-04; "Ex­ 1^2' posure," 168-73, 188; "The Fates," 173; "From My Diary, July 1914," 169-70; "Futility," 166η, 175, 186, 18788; "Greater Love," 192-94, 202, 300; "Happiness," 168; "Hospital Barge at Cerisy, 166η; "Insensi­ bility," 188, 190; "Inspection," 175; "It Is Not Death," 189; "Mental Cases," 185-86, 187, 195; "Miners," 166η, 175, 18284, 192; "The Seed," 166-67, 172, 173; "The Sentry," 175, 200, 201-02; "The Show," 18890; "Smile, Smile, Smile," 200; "Song of Songs," 166η; "Spring Offensive," 175, 200, 201-02, 282; "Strange Meeting," 11, 179, 195-99, 2°6> 244> 249> 277> 2 ?8· 337; "To Eros," 182; "To My Friend," 173; "The Unreturning," 182; "Wild with All Re­ grets," 181 Oxford University, 29, 36, 42, 146η; Balliol College, 37; Queen's Col­ lege, 115; Trinity College, 43; University College, 54 pararhyme, 169-71, 208 Parry, Thomas, A History of Welsh Literature, 310 pastoral poetry, 115, 116, 181; eighteenth-century, 117-18, 121, 153; Georgian, 4, 27, 28, 77, 117; twentieth-century, 153 Pater, Walter, 55 Pinto, Vivian de Sola, 106; Crisis in English Poetry, 27 poetic theory, Imagist, 223, 255-56, 281; Read, Sir Herbert, 259-61, 267; romantic, 6-7 Poetry (Chicago), 215η Pound, Ezra, 215η, 223, 322, 323 Pre-Raphaelites, 217 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 41 Read, Sir Herbert, 24, 238, 250-83,

284, 286; "Ambush" ("The Raid"), 258, 268; Collected Poems, 256; English Prose Style, 281; The Green Child, 264η; In Retreat, 268, 279-81, 294; The Innocent Eye, 253, 254, 258, 260, 267; Naked Warriors, 261; The Philosophy of Modern Art, 111η; Songs of Chaos, 253; "Defi­ nitions towards a Modern Theory of Poetry," 259; "The Present State of Poetry," 255-56; "The Crucifix," 256; The End of a War, 250-52, 268-79, 280-81, 283; "The Execution of Cornelius Vane," 262-63, 2^T' "Fear," 257; "The Happy Warrior," 257; "Kneeshaw Goes to War," 262, 263-66, 267; "Liedholz," 257-58, 263; "My Company," 261-62; "The Refugees," 256; "Truth for a Change," 258-59; "Villages Demolis," 256; "Winter Land­ scape, Ypres," 254 Regular Army, 73 Rheims, Cathedral of, 126 Richards, I. A., 27 Rivers, Dr. W. H. R., 83, 108 Rosenberg, Isaac, 24, 75, 112, 21049, 250, 252, 255, 261, 335; Complete Works, 213η, 214, 215, 21^> 217» 229"3°. 232_33> 236; Moses, 215; Night and Day, 212; Youth, 215; "August 1914," 222-23; "Bacchanal," 217; "A Ballad of Whitechapel," 217; "Break of Day in the Trenches," 215η, 234-36; "The Daughters of War," 229-32, 234, 236, 242; "The Dead Heroes," 215-16, 220, 221, 238; "Dead Man's Dump," 11, 215, 236-46, 248; "From France," 226-27; "HomeThoughts from France," 226; "In War," 227-29, 230, 231, 238; "Like Some Fair Subtle Poison," 217; "Louse Hunting," 218-19, 220; "Marching," 215, 219-20; "Night," 217; "On Receiving

INDEX N e w s of the W a r , " 221-22,

Fathers,"

224,

105;

a

ing,

We

225-

105-06; " G l o r y of W o m e n , "

26,

246;

224,

"Golgotha," 86, 89; " T h e

the

Larks,"

"Spring

1916,"

Cold

92;

"How

Unicorn,"

the

Pink,"

226; " 'Through T h e s e Pale Days,'"

248;

"The

214, 246, 247,

to

Die,"

89;

R o u t h , H . V . , God,

Man,

ter H o m e , "

218

and

"The

The

Guard," 99-100,

26

R o y a l W e l c h Fusiliers, 80,

Troops,"

Redeemer,"

285

sion

26

of

102;

82

War

"Sick

155,

186;

115-16,

156, 157,

146n, 160-62,

Good

"Suicide

174,

175,

" 'They,'"

199,

200,

Officer," 106-07;

207,

210,

216,

220,

222,

226,

er,"

229,

233,

234,

235,

244,

250,

128;

252,

257,

258,

261,

263,

282,

92;

Murderer,

80;

of George of

an

The

a

Memoirs

Sherston,

80;

Memoirs

Infantry Old

of

8on;

Officer,

Huntsman,

8 4 , 8 4 - 9 4 , 9®>

11J

8on, 81,

100;

82,

>

73>

ture

Show,

1 1 0 ; Sherston's

ress,

8 o n , 9 5 ; Siegfried's

44, 84, 89n, 108-09,

110;

103,

199;

105;

Journey,

the

" 'Blighters,' "

93-94;

Attack," 96-99, Musicians,"

Battle,"

141,

102;

105;

279,

181,

226;

226 162,

186;

Noble

i63n

De-

232

115,

118,

258,

286,

287,

332,

334 Sorley,

90;

of

104-05; " T h e D r e a m , " 102; "EdiImpressions,"

229,

S o m m e Offensive, 25, 71-77, 81, 90,

W o u n d s , " 9 1 ; " D o e s it M a t t e r ? " , torial

Working

Bysshe,

Slade School, 212,

"Dead

"Died

94,

326

Osbert,

Essences,

"Counter144;

85,

"A

William,

Percy

Sitwell,

"Battalion-Relief,"

"Before

102;

" T o a Skylark,"

5 6 , 160-

"Base

Dead Broth-

Shaw, George Bernard, 5

m a t h , " 110; "Attack," 101; "Bantails,"

My

Victory,"

"Wirers,"

Shelley,

61, 202; "Absolution," 84; "Afterishment,"

Any

Skyros, 2 6 Prog-

j

"To

Tombstone-Maker,"

3 2 1 ; Hamlet,

83,

1

"To

"The

Shakespeare,

Daffodil

Memoirs

85;

93;

Frailty,"

Party," 87-88

Counter-

Man,

Fox-Hunting

Trenches," 104-

173,

The

the

"Their

195,

3°3;

Morn-

104;

185;

168,

°>

199;

05,

185,

20

97,

103,

Friday

in

166,

83, 94-107, 108, 110, 111,

"The

"Repres-

10, 103-04, 175; "Survivors,"

184,

173-74,

9°>

Experience,"

165,

Attack,

Rear-

195;

Leave,"

181,

284, 285, 322, 332, 335;

"The

"Prelude:

"The

142,

86-87,

"Stand-to:

117, 118, 121, 122, 126-27,

LetTab-

ing," 89-90; "Stretcher Case," 91,

Sassoon, Siegfried, 24, 26-27, 4 3 , 52, 58, 70, 7 8 - 1 1 2 , 113, 114,

96;

88; 175;

110;

One-Legged Man," 92;

Royal Naval Division,

150,

"In

Kiss,"

90; "Memorial

Royal Dragoons, 37, 38

149,

Hero,"

104-05;

let," 110; "Memory,"

Epic

145-46

Russell, Bertrand,

11, 104;

" T h e Last Meeting," 90; "A

Ross, Robert, 81, 9 2

rugby, 25,

Fin-

General,"

"Lamentations," 10, 104-05,

250

Rossetti, D a n t e Gabriel, 217, Poetry,

"The

to

ish,"

Hear

103;

"Fight

238-39; "Raphael," 217; "Return-

"The

79,

Charles, 91,

176,

198,

25,

35,

55>

210,

Marlborough 58n;

"All

and the

"A

Call

Loquitur,"

232,

333;

Letters,

^-58,

64-65;

Other

Hills to

166,

223,

Poems,

and

Along," 60-62; "Barbury 58;

53-70,

162,

215, 56>

55-^6,

42,

i46n,

235, 242, 248, 255,

"Deus

35 2

24,

111-12,

Vales Camp,"

Action," 59;

58;

"Expec-

INDEX

tans Expectavi," 59; "A Hun­ dred Thousand Million Mites We Go," 63, 65, in, 249; "I Have Not Brought My Odyssey," 65; "If I Have Suffered Pain," 58; "Lost," 64; "Rain," 58; "The River," 58-59; "Rooks," 59; "The Seekers," 58; "The Song of the Ungirt Runners," 58; "There Is Such Change in All Those Fields," 65; "To Germany," 62, 63, 198; "To Poets," 58; "Two Sonnets," 59η, 65-69; "What You Will," 59; "When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead," 65, 67, 69; "Whom Therefore We IgnorantIy Worship," 59 Sorley, William Ritchie, 53 Spender, Stephen, 106; The Destruc­ tive Element, 205 Squire, Sir John, 116 subjectivity, Georgian poetry, 5, 56; World War I narrative prose, 279-80; World War I poetry, 9, 17, 45, 136, 141-42, 143, 191-92, 201-02, 252, 291, 298 Swift, Jonathan, Gulliver's Travels, 285 Swinburne, Algernon, 55, 217, 232 Synge, John Millington, 8 Tailhade, Laurent, 158; Lettre aux Conscrits, 158; Pour la Paix, 158 Taliesin, 306 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 3, 5, 55, 164, 253 Thomas, Edward, 26, 128 Thompson, Francis, 216, 217; Sister Songs, 217; "A Child's Kiss," 217 Thomson, James, 117 Thornycroft, Sir Hamo, 79 Times (London), 23, 27, 38, 43, 85 Trevelyan, R. C., 211 Vaughan, Henry, "Departed Friends," 151 Victoria, Queen, 3 Victorian poets, 7 Virgil, 191

Watson, Sir William, 63 war novel, see World War I novel war poetry, see World War I poetry Wellesley, Lady Dorothy, 207 Wells, H. G., 5 West, Arthur Graeme, The Diary of a Dead Officer, 146η; "God, How I Hate You7 You Young Cheer­ ful Men!", 147η; "The Night Pa­ trol," 146η, 237 Westminster Art School, 285 Westminster Gazette, 25 Westminster School, 29 Whitman, Walt, 233 Widsith, 307 Williams, Gwyn, An Introduction to Welsh Poetry, 310 Winchester College, 43 Woolf, Virginia, 323 Wordsworth, William, 7, 20, 30, 339

World War I, Armistice, 84, 110, 165; disillusionment after Somme Offensive, 71; England declares war on Germany, 21; German spring offensive, 1918, 83; mili­ tary operations, scale of, 15; patri­ otic response in England, 1914, 21, 40, 166; physical scale of, 14; scientific violence of, 13-14, 14546; technological aspects of, 10-11 World War I novel, 11, 15, 251, 33 8

World War I poetry, censorship of, 106; characteristic qualities, 9-20; civilian attitudes, attacks upon, 13, 58, 69, 75, 77, 81, 91-94, 10305, 107, 149, 174, 180, 185, 191, 200, 331-32; compassionate vision, 10, 19, 75, 147, 155-56, 164, 205-07, 211, 237, 244, 245; early romantic idealism, 30-36, 40-42, 44-53, 84-85, 118, 128, 211, 223, 234; elegiac themes, 32, 33-34, 52-53, 65-70, 106-07, 149'52> !75-79, 215-16, 311-12; evolu­ tion, 9-20, 20, 251, 338, 339; fraternal love, theme of, 47, 103, 179-80, 228, 261-62; heroic theme

INDEX

reversed, 88; heroic themes ex eluded, 102; idealistic response be fore Somme Offensive, 71-73; in tensification, emotional and realis tic, 9-10, 44 -53, 75-78, 237; irony 13, 59-62, 66-69, 90, 91-92, 103 05, 149, 182, 193, 219, 304, 313 24, 40

lyric mode, 9-10, 18-19, 41, 44-45, 49, 65, 101,

111-12

114, 130, 133, 135, 136, 141-42 146,

146-47^

206-07,

22

5'27>

153-54, 22

9>

2

201-02

34"36, 236

38, 239, 246, 247-48, 249, 251 52, 261, 278, 283, 284, 286, 291 294, 296, 311, 312, 317-21, 337 38; narrative mode, 24, 47, 48 52, 86-88, 97-99, 135-46,

146-47^

m-12, 114 154,

200-02

227-29, 237-38. 239-43, 252, 262 66, 278, 286-88, 290-94, 311 312-21; pity, theme of, 183-84 192, 198, 205-07, 242, 245, 263 333-34; realism, 13, 76-78, 89 96-98, 98-99, 118, 119, 126-28 !74-75, 257, 300, 302;

satire,

13

Somme Offensive, mood of protest and re­ jection after, 73-78; tragic vision,

91-94, 103-06, 149, 257;

60-61, 63-65, 75, 114, 119, 12835, 148-49, 154, 205-06, 211, 234, 236; tragic vision, lack of, 19-20, 88

World War I poets, early idealistic response, 17-18; lyric mode, use of, 24; search for more compre­ hensive mode, 10, 111-12 World War I prose narrative, 10001, 135η, 142-43, 268, 279-81

Wright, Orville, 5 Wright, Wilbur, 5 Yeats, William Butler,

8, 19, 88,

Letters on Poetry to Dorothy Wellesley, 207; Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 208, 233, 247, 253;

17, 206, 281

Young, Edward, 117; Night Thoughts, 117η Ypres, 36, 73, 115, 123 Ypres, Third Battle of, 136