Rupert Brooke

From my research, it seems that Rupert Brooke was only a brief part of the Dymock group. He was asked to write some war poems for Gibson and Abercrombie to publish, and he perhaps might not have verntured into this type of poem without their influence. Nevertheless, they loved his work and posted it to subscribers of the Dymock movement, and I think any contributor is worth a looksee.

This poet seems to have a lovely range of long and short poems. The long ones I will recommend as an extra read, as they are too jam-packed for me to do them justice, so I shall just say read Dining Room Tea at least.

Today, as it si the poem submitted to the movement, we shall have:

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
   That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
   In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
   Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
   Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
   A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
      Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
   And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
      In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

I apologise first of all if my analysis is a little disjointed: I am partially watching Eurovision!

The identity constructed in this passage is a selfless, accepting and self-sacrificing one. The first line acknowledges the possibility of death, and then the selfless, modest attitude comes across through the adverb 'only' and the singular 'this', asking very little of the audience, as 'think' is a stative, not dynamic, verb.

I am taking the 'foreign...England' to be a patriotic message that each grave of an English soldier belongs to England at heart, thus the 'richer dust', as the wealth of a life has been sacrificed into ashes. It is interesting to see that he has personified England as a female. This can be linked to the motherhood identity of motherlands, which bear and rear the inhabitants of the country. It therefore comes as a source of comfort to one who faces death. I am sure that Freud would find some link with the Oedipus complex, especially with the seemingly telepathic link conveyed through the 'thoughts' being given back. This also creates an overarching English cognitive system, again very patriotic.

It is interesting that this poem praises England, even though the English have sent the narrator to die. Perhaps England here is separate from its government, which explains the natural lexis ('day', 'flowers', 'rivers'). Many war poets criticised government and war-supporters specifically, but there is no hint of that here, merely the selfless yet patriotic praise. The forward-looking and hopeful note of 'heaven' concludes, ensuring the cancelling out of the negative atmosphere of death, as has been overcome by the positive lexis of England.

That's all from me this week. Do enjoy Eurovision if you watch as well!

Dymock poets...I don't know how to say that either

...that's because it is a place name. The poets came from the area around the town of Dymock, before WW1. I don't know where I first heard about this group; all I can tell you is that I wrote down to study them, so I am!

These are the six poets:

Lascelles Abercrombie
Rupert Brooke
John Drinkwater
Robert Frost
Wilfrid Gibson
Edward Thomas

Each week for the next six weeks, I shall study these individuals and the role they had to play in the group. I know that I have already covered Frost (I think!) but I shall look closer at his involvement in the Dymock club.

So, let's begin at the top, with Lascelles Abercrombie. In actual fact, he started the group and so is the best place to begin. He was interested in the upcoming realism in contemporary poetry, and also fascinated by the countryside.

I don't think I will need to describe realism; this poem gives you all you need in itself.

The Box

Once upon a time, in the land of Hush-A-Bye,
Around about the wondrous days of yore,
They came across a kind of box
Bound up with chains and locked with locks
And labeled 'Kindly do not touch; it's war.'
A decree was issued round about, and all with a flourish and a shout
And a gaily colored mascot tripping lightly on before.
Don't fiddle with this deadly box, or break the chains, or pick the locks.
And please don't ever play about with war.
The children understood. Children happen to be good
And they were just as good around the time of yore.
They didn't try to pick the locks or break into that deadly box.
They never tried to play about with war.
Mommies didn't either; sisters, aunts, grannies neither
'Cause they were quiet, and sweet, and pretty
In those wondrous days of yore.
Well, very much the same as now,
And not the ones to blame somehow
For opening up that deadly box of war.
But someone did. Someone battered in the lid
And spilled the insides out across the floor.
A kind of bouncy, bumpy ball made up of guns and flags
And all the tears, and horror, and death that comes with war.
It bounced right out and went bashing all about,
Bumping into everything in store. And what was sad and most unfair
Was that it didn't really seem to care
Much who it bumped, or why, or what, or for.
It bumped the children mainly. And I'll tell you this quite plainly,
It bumps them every day and more, and more,
And leaves them dead, and burned, and dying
Thousands of them sick and crying.
'Cause when it bumps, it's really very sore.
Now there's a way to stop the ball. It isn't difficult at all.
All it takes is wisdom, and I'm absolutely sure
That we can get it back into the box, and bind the chains, and lock the locks.
But no one seems to want to save the children anymore.
Well, that's the way it all appears, 'cause it's been bouncing round
for years and years
In spite of all the wisdom wizzed since those wondrous days of yore
And the time they came across the box,
Bound up with chains and locked with locks,
And labeled 'Kindly do not touch; it's war.'

To me, the irregular rhyme (that when it occurs is rather immediate) gives a sing-song, child-like rhythm to the poem. This frames the idea that 'war' is never the fault of children, but is always affecting them, possibly the most, as fathers are lost (I am sticking to the poem's ideology, in which women do not fight), and the cost of the damage to the country is for the younger generations to repay and rebuild.

The metaphor is an interesting one, because it connoted to me the story of Pandora's box. But here, the image is specifically altered to be applied to men, not women - females have been blamed fro so many disasters, like the Fall of man, but here is one man who will blame his own sex for the tragedy of war.

This is not to say that I agree with his stereotyping of women. He lists them in their supposed functions, as 'mommies', 'sisters, aunties, grannies', all relating women to family roles. Then comes the infuriating 'cause they were quiet and sweet and pretty'. Thank you for claiming that women have no voice; poets like you made their voices louder. 'To be seen and not heard' come to mind at all? Even here the male gaze is being forced upon women. Did he think there would be gratitude because women were not being accused of starting wars?

The tone of realism begins to fade in the poem when the narrator thinks that 'we can get it back into the box', but then again he has recognised that we need 'wisdom' to do this, and as long as he thought wisdom would never be attained then the poem is still realist, especially as he ends on the reminder that is has been opened, even by wise people. So in the end, we can all hope for peace, but there will always be others who want war, and so we will always have war. Realism seems to be a euphemism for pessimism these days, unfortunately.