Re: war poetry
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Wed, 19 Aug 1998 09:04:07 +1000
> `...If you look at a lot of that poetry - be it WWI or WWII -
> the message is literally `play the game and you can't lose'
> (there's one particular one whose name escapes me which
> compares war with a game of cricket)...'
Of course, I should have said more specifically `pre WWI poetry'. And it's
true - this poem really does exist and I was told was a favourite of
turn-of-the-century schoolboys; and the implication was exactly that
comparison between the public schoolboy cricket game and the warfield. The
refrain was something like `Get up, go on, keep on playing the game'. If
you have ever seen the movie `Oh! What A Lovely War' you'll see how the
opening scenes are symbolic of that attitude to the Great War. People
really didn't know what they were getting in to. For those who haven't seen
it, the beginning of the war and the sense of excitement and pageantry are
represented by a street parade.
Naturally, once young men like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon got a
taste of what war was really like they demonstrated exactly the same
opinion as Holden - they didn't want to play the game anymore. And
interestingly enough, after Sassoon published his famous declaration
denouncing the war, they had exactly the same reaction they did to Holden -
they threw him in the loony bin. Unbelievable.
Sorry about the confusion.
P.S. Like Will I'm very much a dedicated pacifist.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
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