Session One, September 17^th

A brief summary of what was discussed.

• WW1 poetry revival in 1960s – associated with 50^th anniversaries; sentiments of eg Dulce et Decorum Est fitted the mood of anti-Vietman protests, peace and love movement
• Model was patriotic enthusiasm > reality of trench warfare > cynicism, anger, opposition to war; focus on experience of men in active service
• Recent reevaluations have modified this: the power of the ‘big words’ motivated some till the very end of the war; the experience of women and non-combatants is seen as esential to a full picture
• ‘cult of Rupert Brooke’: came to represent the model of the patriotic, poetic young man who died for his country (Brooke actually died of a poisoned wound, on St George’s Day, 1915)
• a Brooke sonnet analysed: Peace. What is a sonnet? 14 lines, 8 of which set a context and 6 of which comment on it, all following a strict English or Italian rhyme scheme and written in iambic pentameters
• Faber’s Eve of War, another sonnet, follows a description of a normal London rush hour with a warning of War. However, the lexis of the octet subtly hints, as does the title, at the message of the sestet. Moreover, the rapid march past of the crowd suggests marching troops, and there is certainly a suggestion of mortality and possibly even a hint of Judgement Day/Doom in the sestet. The style of the poem is disciplined and sophisticated, with a more natural speaking rhythm superimposed on the underlying iambic. The poet employs alliteration, assonance, pathetic fallacy and personification, all without any impression of contrivance.
• Vitai Lampada may be linked to ‘muscular christianity’ and helps inform our understanding of the sentiments in Brooke’s sonnets.

Jesse Pope was c/f to the next poetry session, in a fortnight’s time.

Next topic: Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain.

We started by looking at the title; 'Testament' means 'witness' or 'evidence'. We then looked at how the text contains a mixture of very traditional stylistic features and more modern ones. Examples of the former include the use of letters and the romantic elements; of the latter include the polyvocality and range of forms, including poetry and diary extracts. Interestingly, these are features of the novel. We looked at how the text contains writing of a range of types. Examples include autobiography, biography, rites of passage and the more contemporary reportage (from a war zone) and travel writing.

We noted Brittain's identification with the male experience of war and her steps to share or mirror it. It was suggested that the female characters are generally presented (except eg Winifred) unsympathetically. She references Graves's memoir in her first chapter, but no war writing by women.

Why is the text so long, and why was it so late in appearing? We discussed a recent analysis that uses theories to do with post-traumatic stress disorder to explain this. In brief, Brittain experienced the loss of virtually all those she had loved and been close to. She then found that in post-war Oxford she felt an oddity and that her war experience was neither understood nor valued. In order to come to terms emotionally (she does this intellectually in the text), she has to confront her trauma and relate it to a sympathetic audience. The former may explain the time delay in producing the text; the latter requires a listening and preferably sympathetic audience, which she lacked. The suggestion is that the vast range of characters brought to life in the text provide a surrogate audience, so that she is able to recollect, retell, and try to come to terms with her trauma. Perhaps the length is because of her reluctance - through a sense of betrayal - to 'move on', as she is now, hopefully, able to do.

Of course, she has not broken faith with any of those who died; in her writing, they live on for generation after generation of readers.

Scroll down for the poems for Session 3

Session 3.

1. We will begin by revisiting the sonnet form. You will need a copy of the poem The Conscript, on the first handout from Week 1 or pg 27 of the Penguin. We will then examine Rupert Brooke’s The Soldier, one of his most widely known poems, to be found on pg 108.
2. We will read The Kiss by Siegfried Sassoon and Arms and the Boy by Wilfred Owen, asking the question: which is the better poem? Why? These poems are on pages 31 and 32 of the Penguin.
3. Our morning will end, time allowing, with a reading of Wilfred Owen’s Exposure, to be found on pp 55-57 of the Penguin. This is a long, masterly and rewarding poem and I hope that we will be able to discuss it. If time is short, we will substitute the same poet’s Futility, on pg 54.

Session 4

We discussed Strange Meeting by Susan Hill. The title seems to be a reference to Owen's poem of the same name, and Owen took the title from Shelley but the inspiration for the subject matter from Sassoon's The Rearguard . So we looked at the Sassoon poem, about a tunneler stumbling along and then ascending out of a metaphorical hell. Owen developed this into the idea of being dead underground and meeting the enemy soldier he had killed, but who was or became his friend; both appeared gifted poets; the voices of both were now silenced so far as the world was concerned.

This actually did not seem to help much with the novel! So was the title more to do with meeting across the past and present, with ourselves, today's readers, meeting the past in imaginative recreation. Or was it Susan Hill's meeting with the past? It was suggested that Hilliard and Barton are opposites, the former from a cold, 'stiff upper lip' background, and the latter from a more emotionally intelligent, sensitive and supportive one; was this the 'strange meeting'?

We then looked at what the novel was 'about'. Was its topic class differences? or homosocial or homosexual relationships? Was it using many of the received truths about WW1 to recreate a sense of it - as a work of 'faction'? We noted the almost satirical picture of the failure of those at home to understand the reality of the front, with Hilliard's father's ironic preoccupation with the state of his lawn and his mother's concern about dust on her clothes. To Hilliard, this was the insane world, and returning to France felt like 'home'.

We also discussed Susan Hill's views (see her website) that a work can have a meaning and significance for the reader which which was not intended by the writer; we construct our own meanings. If this is so, then the 'subject matter' recedes because there is the (conscious) inspiration of the author, the distorting transmission into words then further distortion when we read them, then construction into our meanings. Words are slippery!What ends up in our minds may be a long way from what was in the writer's.

We are touching on big theoretical issues here!

Afterthought: it occurs to me that the 'strange meeting' may be both Barton and Hilliard, representing civilised values in their different ways, meeting the horror of war. Or is it a meeting of genres, with Hill's novel communicating in its different way the pity of war, Owen's subject?

Session 5.

1. Once more, we will begin by refreshing our knowledge of the sonnet form, this time looking at Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth, on pg 131 of the Penguin.
2. Next, we will examine the same poet’s Dulce et Decorum Est, on pp 141-2. The poet’s earlier thoughts on same theme will be provided on a handout.
3. We will finish by comparing three poems on the subject of death: A Dead Boche, by Robert Graves, The Volunteer, by Herbert Asquith and the familiar In Flanders Fields by John McCrae.

If any time is left after discussion, we will look at the sonnet Memorial Tablet by Siegfried Sassoon, on pg 244.