Tag Archives: Wilfred Owen

A War Hero Who Derided Memorials

By Robin Bates | Published: May 28, 2023

World War I poet Sassoon lambasts those who think that war memorials pay off the debt to those who gave their lives.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Dulce et Decorum Est", "On Passing the New Menin Gate", Battles of Ypres, Menin Gate, Siegfried Sassoon, World War I | Comments closed

Wanted: Teachers, Not Martyrs

By Robin Bates | Published: August 8, 2020

Some say teachers should, like soldiers, should put their lives on the line. This A.E. Housman poem brings up the question of whether even soldiers should do so when there sacrifice will be meaningless.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Charge of the Light Brigade", "Here Dead We Lie", "I Have a Rendezvous with Death", "Soldier", "Strange Meeting", A. E. Housman, Alan Seeger, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Bertolt Brecht, COVID-19, Donald Trump, Galileo, Rupert Brooke, school reopening, teachers, Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien | Comments closed

There Watched I for the Dead

By Robin Bates | Published: May 24, 2020

In Owen’s “Unreturning,” our poem for Memorial Day, the poet excoriates those who use religion to justify warfare.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Unreturning", Memorial Day, war, war dead | Comments closed

Vets in WWI Documentary Do Not Age

By Robin Bates | Published: March 11, 2019

Tuesday Last night Julia and I watched Peter Jackson’s extraordinary documentary about World War I in which he applied filmmaker’s magic to archival footage to create a sense of immediacy. By brightening dark shots and darkening overexposed ones, erasing scratches, evening out movement (World War I film was shot with hand-cranked cameras), turning long-shots into […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Greater Love", "The Man He Killed", Peter Jackson, Thomas Hardy, war, World War I | Comments closed

Wilfred Owen and the Hell of War

By Robin Bates | Published: November 9, 2018

In “Mental Cases” Warren describes, as a nightmare, veterans suffering from PTSD and other war-related mental illnesses.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Mental Cases", veterans PTSD, war, World War I | Comments closed

Mourning the Mouthless Dead

By Robin Bates | Published: May 28, 2018

Charles Hamilton Sorley, killed early in World War I, penned anti-war poetry that anticipated Wilfred Owen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "When you see millions of the mouthless dead", Charles Hamilton Sorley, Memorial Day, war, World War I | Comments closed

Memorial Day: Anthem for Doomed Youth

By Robin Bates | Published: May 29, 2017

With Memorial Day, there is the danger that we will romanticize the deaths of the fallen rather than face up to the full tragedy. This tension can be seen in a number of World War I poems, some of which romanticize the fallen while others dwell on the absurdity of their deaths.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "For the Fallen", "I Have a Rendezvous with Death", "Soldier", Alan Seeger, death and dying, Laurence Binyon, Memorial Day, Rupert Brooke, war, World War I | Comments closed

Soldier, Rest, Thy Warfare O’er

By Robin Bates | Published: May 25, 2015

In “Soldier Rest,” Sir Walter Scott captures how inviting death can look to those caught up in battle’s throes.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Strange Meeting", death and dying, Lady of the Lake, Memorial Day, Sir Walter Scott, war | Comments closed

Whitman’s Poem a Lesson for War Hawks

By Robin Bates | Published: April 9, 2015

In “The Wound-Binder,” Walt Whitman refuses to glorify war and only shows its bloody aftermath–a good thing to remember on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s final day.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Dulce et Decorum Est", "Wound-Binder", Civil War, death and dying, Walt Whitman, war fever | Comments closed