Over the top, Poetry from the trenches

Flanders Field

Forward we march

Upon the eve of battle

Voices singing songs of glory

Mud filling our boots

Upon the eve of battle

We sit deep in filth filled trenches

Mud filling our boots

Waiting for the whistle

We sit deep in filth filled trenches

Peering into No Man’s Land

Waiting for the whistle

Knuckles white on our rifles

Peering into No Man’s Land

Artillery screaming o’er our heads

Knuckles white on our rifles

Machine guns chattering like giant teeth

Artillery screaming o’er our heads

Dirt covered corpses thrown in the air

Machine guns chattering like giant teeth

Dirty brown gas creeping into the trench

Dirt covered corpses thrown in the air

Eyes burning, we grab for our masks

Dirty brown gas creeping into the trench

Choking and gasping we struggle to live

Eyes burning, we grab for our masks

Blinded, each lungful of air burning

Choking and gasping we struggle to live

We stumble and falter unseeing

Blinded, each lungful of air burning

Voices singing songs of glory

We stumble and falter unseeing

Forward we march

This poem is of my own creation, based on the works of Siegfried Sassoon, whose works I devoured as a kid. In fourth grade my teacher had a collection of books on her desk that were written by Sassoon, and I would secretly read them during class, ignoring the ways to tell time or the simple math problems placed upon the board and read instead the horrors of war and the struggles of those in the trenches. ever since then i have enjoyed the poems of Sassoon and those like him, depicting a world that I could not imagine, but only attempt to picture. This was a man who won a Victoria Cross only to throw it into a lake and get put in an insane asylum when he tried to speak out against the war. His poems moved me and I wanted to write what he did, depicting the horrors of war. so i leave you with the poem that first inspired me.

"The rank stench of those bodies haunts me still"
The rank stench of those bodies haunts me still
And I remember things I'd best forget.
For now we've marched to a green, trenchless land
Twelve miles from battering guns: along the grass
Brown lines of tents are hives for snoring men;
Wide, radiant water sways the floating sky
Below dark, shivering trees. And living-clean
Comes back with thoughts of home and hours of sleep.
To-night I smell the battle; miles away
Gun-thunder leaps and thuds along the ridge;
The spouting shells dig pits in fields of death,
And wounded men, are moaning in the woods.
If any friend be there whom I have loved,
God speed him safe to England with a gash.
It's sundown in the camp; some youngster laughs,
Lifting his mug and drinking health to all
Who come unscathed from that unpitying waste:
(Terror and ruin lurk behind his gaze.)
Another sits with tranquil, musing face,
Puffing bis pipe and dreaming of the girl
Whose last scrawled letter lies upon his knee.
The sunlight falls, low-ruddy from the west,
Upon their heads. Last week they might have died
And now they stretch their limbs in tired content.
One says 'The bloody Bosche has got the knock;
'And soon they'll crumple up and chuck their games.
'We've got the beggars on the run at last!'
Then I remembered someone that I'd seen
Dead in a squalid, miserable ditch,
Heedless of toiling feet that trod him down.
He was a Prussian with a decent face,
Young, fresh, and pleasant, so 1 dare to say.
No doubt he loathed the war and longed for peace,
And cursed our souls because we'd killed bis friends.
One night he yawned along a haIf-dug trench
Midnight; and then the British guns began
With heavy shrapnel bursting low, and 'hows'
Whistling to cut the wire with blinding din.
He didn't move; the digging still went on;
Men stooped and shovelled; someone gave a grunt,
And moaned and died with agony in the sludge.
Then the long hiss of shells lifted and stopped.
He stared into the gloom; a rocket curved,
And rifles rattled angrily on the left
Down by the wood, and there was noise of bombs.
Then the damned English loomed in scrambling haste
Out of the dark and struggled through the wire,
And there were shouts and eurses; someone screamed
And men began to blunder down the trench
Without their rifles. It was time to go:
He grabbed his coat; stood up, gulping some bread;
Then clutched his head and fell.
I found him there
In the gray morning when the place was held.
His face was in the mud; one arm flung out
As when he crumpled up; his sturdy legs
Were bent beneath bis trunk; heels to the skye.

                                           Sassoon

Britain enters the 20th century

A century of decline from the massive empire awaits Britain as it enters into the 1900 hundreds. Wars unlike any before seen, the loss of all her major foreign holdings. economic decline and depression far worse than had been seen in ages since. Yet through all of this she will lead the world with music and literature. Many Fantasy worlds and Science Fiction settings will spread like wildfire across the Atlantic and resonate with many former colonies. From this we see the spread of ideas and novels, things that the British inspire around the world.

Two world war in only twenty years, Communist forces spreading in Europe, NATO, Korean war, the loss of India the jewel in the crown, the Falklands war. All of this in the short span of a hundred years. Yet Britain still maintains a major role in today's politics.

But enough about history, what defines the English in this period, besides the wars and political chaos that reigned through these times? Music, Television and hundreds of books written by many authors from J.R.R. Tolkien, to Arthur C. Clarke, and C.S. Lewis.

This is a nation that gave us Monty Python, the humor that they delivered in the Flying Circus and many movies left a great impact on the world as a whole, not many people will not know what your talking about when you mention things like the Black Knight, or Mr. Creosote.

Dr. Who will become a worldwide phenomenon again hundreds of people will know when you mention things like the sonic screwdriver, of the Daleks. From Galefray to West end, the police call box takes this hero from one end of the universe to the other, exploring time and space. Eleven doctors have practiced on the BBC from 1960s to now.

The British Isles have produced music and movies, literature and language and as much as we claim independence we are as much a colony now as then, simply living on the exports from across the pond.

Mysterys and their sleuths

The end of the 1800s to the 1930 saw the growth of one of the biggest genre that would grace the shelves of readers worldwide, the mystery. The Moonstone was just one of many that would soon be enthralling readers across the isles of Britain to the shores of America. Every mystery has its sleuths, detectives, private eyes, and police officers ready to set out and solve cases. From the Moonstone's Sergent Cuff, to Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie's Poirot, each one having their own methods and ideas that would entice English readers as well as many others across the world.

While we may not have read any of these books in British Lit this semester, I would believe that a whole semester could have been taught on nothing more than the English mystery writers and their detectives. Each character has their own abilities and designs, yet they are all similar in a fashion.

The main one that we have all ready read this semester is Sergent Cuff, and his sleuthing that lead to the discover of the death of Rachel as well as uncovering  many secrets in the early chapters. He is revealed to be a small of stature man who does not like detective work and would much rather be working in a garden, in fact, he get into a rather large argument with the gardener over the way the roses should be laid out in the garden. His steady questioning often gets results often at the frustration of the narrator Mr. Betteredge, a feature that many other detective share.

One that we have heard of at least once, the grand and illustrious Sherlock Holmes. the mastermind detective outsmarting many criminals and unraveling hundreds of mysteries and eventually eclipsing his creators fame. Again we see the steady questions that eventually root out the villains, and the odd behavior that leads many to lose their temper with the detective. Here we also get the Detective aid, who everything is explained to so that we as readers can understand the genus of the sleuth, enter Dr. Watson, the military medic fresh from his adventures in Afghanistan. This role was occupied by Mr. Beteredge in the Moonstone and many other books have the same character. 

Not till the 1920's will we see another famous sleuths enter the scene through the fantastic works of Agatha Christie.  Hercule Poirot, the funny Belgian and his assistant Hastings. Poirot uses his "Little gray cells" to solve his crimes and often annoys not only his employers but often his assistant. The themes that made Sherlock famous come to work here as well aided by the fantastic writing of Christie. 

All of these great detectives set forth to show the British approach to crimes that reacts often oppositely to the American crime dramas of the 1920 and 30s of shooting first and asking questions later, showing that mind will always come first solving crimes without leaving a trail of dead bodies in the wake.

Britain in the 1900's

In the 1900s England was moving forward, expanding outward, and pushing the boundaries of technologies. Steam power transformed Greater Britain into a economic power and changed the lives of everyone. Trains began to run from city to city, crisscrossing England, providing a way to get out from London and visit the countrysides, and vise versa. Factories popped up everywhere, and soon all members of the population were working and learning new trades. Britain began to continue solidify her overseas holdings as well as expanding her influence on other nations and places. Britain was Growing on the world scene.
The first key thing that changed literature in Britain was the Train. while traveling one wanted things to do, watching the countryside fly by was only so interesting for so long. small novellas and magazine issues and newspapers skyrocketed in popularity. This created a demand for many new types of literature, mystery, romances, completely changing the literature in this era. Just imagine and era where bookstores sat on every corner and in every station. Libraries sprang up in almost every block, where printing presses hardly slowed at night, rushing to keep up the demand. This is a world I wish that I could have lived.

Britian in the 1800s

In the 1800's Britain was a brand new nation facing brand new challenges. At the end of the 1700's Britain had just fought Netherlands for control of the English channel, set up a new empire in India, America, Africa, and Australia. She was flexing her new muscles at sea, stretching her new professional army, providing a new outlook for those searching for Life, Liberty, and the other ideas in freedom. But by the end of the 1800's they had lost the first of many colonies, found themselves alone facing the new threat of Napoleon's new army that had just finished overrunning most nations in Europe. They had developed a whole new national identity in the face of these many obstacles.
"Rue Britannia" A song that represented the whole new idea developed around the ideals created by a new power with new strengths.

These new ideas are often reflected on and in the writings of the British Authors. Much more do we find the influences of not only the new ideas, but the effects of this change in the British physic. You get the whole idea that many of the writers in poetry not liking many of these changes as Britain moved towards not just industrialization but war as well. often you get these shouts out against the changes. In all of the poems you get this sense that some of them dislike these changes, until we get Napoleon stepping onto the stage.

But all of this aside, what we see is this new idea, an idea of both exploration and reassessing their roots, stepping forward while looking back, these new ideas, helping to redefine what it means to be British.

Addressed To A Young Man Of Fortune explication

Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Moan haply in a dying mother's ear:
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd,
Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs
The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart
Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,
Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)
What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!
O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd,
All effortless thou leave Life's commonweal
A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.

       This poem by Coleridge has an interesting difference from the normal poems. It doesn't follow the appreciation of  nature that most of his do, nor does it contain the want to pass the appreciation to someone else. At first glance this seems to just be Coleridge shouting insults at someone who seems to not appreciate the wealth that he has gained, nor the way that he lives. He decides that this person is basically running around shouting insults to those who are far less fortunate than he is. However we can see Coleridge's character shows a bit of loss for the young man, and the ideas that we had looked at in many others of his poems. the longing in nature, particularly in wanting more notice from it. as well as the attempts to past it on to another person in this case with the young man. this links it all back into a single idea, which is played through in all of Coleridge poems. The lost beauty of Nature, the longing it leaves, and the want to pass it to the next generation. all easily in place in this poem.

First post for the rest of the year