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Unit 2: 1914/1916
1914
Brooke: The War Sonnets
Sorley on Brooke
Sorley: When You See Millions
of the Mouthless Dead
1916: the Battle of the Somme
1917: Passchendaele
Owen: Anthem for Doomed Youth
Hardy: Men Who March Away
Owen: The Send-off
Larkin: MCMXIV
Summary/Overview
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So -
in 1914 what do you do?
(i) Britain
has not been involved in a major Eurpean war since the Napleonic Wars
ending with the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.
(ii) All wars since - those which have created the British Empire, self-consciously
the largest the World had ever seen- have been distant, sustained by
the relatively small professional British Army, not threatening to the
British homeland.
(iii) 'Nationalism', 'Patriotism' - is relatively new, relatively fashionable:
the belief that the 'highest' values which should inform a life are
to be found in identification of an individual's life with the larger
unit which he/she finds himself/herself born into. This is not the government
of the day - but the much larger geographical/historical units which
make up the 'nation' (the continuities of the 'nation' consist in the
asserted continuities of language and culture and family residence)
(iv) There's a fundamental belief in 'higher values': that is, the individual
life needs to be justified by higher order values - the life of the
individual is subordinate to ideas of 'duty', 'sacrifice' of individually-held
aims, even the individual's life. Personal desire is secondary to the
wider unit.
(iv) Ideas of 'History' have been informed by popular 'interpretations'
of Darwinism: History is the 'survival of the fittest' among nations
- that is competition between states is inevitable, and such competition
(through diplomacy and war) has to be won (the appearance of co-operation
between states can only be temporary and tactical). There will be only
one winner in the struggle of states to survive.
(v) Men and Women are fundamentally different: the masculine role is
to be active in the world- men forage and protect, women are essentially
domestic: static, passive, vulnerable. Wars are just an extension of
the protection of 'home'.
(vi) War is an 'adventure' : a central masculine life experience. The
'soldier' is typical, somehow central and essential, as a masculine
role.
(vii) Some people believe the war will be short and intense ('home before
the leaves fall' ie the war will be over by the autumn of 1914); others,
like Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War, realised
early on that the war would require mass mobilisation, huge armies,
high casualty rates before it would be over. Either way, it's necessary
to join up early: opportunity or duty require it.
So -
what do you do?
(the photograph
shows American troops leaving the USA, 1917)
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