World War One tore Britain apart. By 1918 it was, according to the rest of the country, mechanized slaughter.
Originally, because no one had witnessed such a thing before, war was a grand event to look forward to and morale was high. Men, women and children were so patriotic that they pushed their family to go to war although it did not take much persuasion as soldiers thought sacrificing their lives was an honour to their Queen and country. Morale quickly changed when lots of mothers, wives and families were told their loved ones would never return from France.Soldiers in battle were often told to turn their awful experiences into writing to keep themselves sane, which is why we have hundreds of deep, emotional and real accounts of life and death on the battlefield. Many soldiers morale changed dramatically and you can see it in their work, John Silkin believes in the “Four Stages of Consciousness”.
Starting with the patriotic soldier Rupert Brooke, moving to Siegfried Sassoon’s anger. Silkin then believes Wilfred Owen represents compassion and pity.The final stage of “Consciousness” is Isaac Rosenburg with imagination and reflection. Many of the poems written at this time were written while in Craig Lockhart psychiatric unit for Officers only. Sebastian Faulks wrote Birdsong in 1993 and even though he was not alive during the war he has included the feelings and accuracy of recreating and reflecting on the world of World War One, very similar to someone like Wilfred Owen who died in battle.
Before Faulks wrote Birdsong he was obsessed with the War, collecting memorabilia such as poems.Birdsong will be compared to the Six Poets of the Great War, an anthology of poets including Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Clearly, the main difference between a poem and a novel is the size. They are two different writing styles. A poem has to make every word they include count, whereas a novel can use its space to manipulate a reader’s feelings.
A relevant theme to “Birdsong”, which is also included in a lot of war poems, is the fraternity these men have created with each other.A lot of men formed close bonds and then they get shattered when their close friends are killed; a novel is more powerful in creating this feeling as it can use up numerous pages with descriptions of new characters whereas a poem usually only has one line. This comradeship between men gives them a reason to live. In Birdsong Stephen Wraysford is not your usual soldier.
Wraysford and his troops are tunnellers, this has intensified their experience together and means they have only each other to communicate with.At first Wraysford is distancing himself from other men, he is detached and uninterested just as Owen was. Owen wrote in a letter to his mother that his company was “expressionless lumps”. War changed all soldiers and both Wraysford and Owen make friends because of their long periods of boredom, which is present in Futility. Stephen Wraysford is a character from 1910, in the novel he is a 48 year old veteran. Wraysford came from a broken home and when he finds love with Isabelle Azaire it is new and interesting for both of them.
When she leaves, Wraysford is filled with hatred and depression. This is the cause for him to then become caught up in anti-Germany, from the patriotism of England, like the rest of the war. This feeling of suppressed frustration is clear in Wilfred Owen’s poems such as “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. Even the title of the poem states hatred for warfare, Owen became rather sarcastic as the war went on.
This could be an effect of taking advice from Siegfried Sassoon or maybe just because of the war lifestyle editing his personally. Owen uses repetition of 3 different sounds in two lines.“Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons” He repeats the R sound in “rapid rattles” and the repetition of the “TT” sound in ‘stuttering”,“rattle” and “patter” this gives it the rhythm of gun shots. Owen repeats sounds to show that the sound will never end, even when war is over he will have the “rapid rattle” in his ears the whole time.
We know now this is true of Owen’s short lived life, he spent his Craig Lockhart days struggling through his “war dreams”-the nightmares he was plagued with-acting in hospital plays and writing poems.Owen did not like traditional poems, or at least didn’t like writing them himself. “Anthem for Doomed Youth” was written in sonnet form, which are traditionally reserved for love poems and this is far from a love poem. It is typical of a sonnet because it includes an octave then a sestet.
Owen has done this to shock the readers, it is very unlikely to use sonnet form when talking about such horrors. Another typical Owen style is the odd rhyming scheme, he wants to get across in every way that war is not usual.It is a futile and odd thing for humans to do. WB Yeats disagreed with all of Owen’s war poetry and did not think he deserved the recognition he received. “When I excluded Wilfred Owen, whom I consider unworthy of the poets' corner of a country newspaper, I did not know I was excluding a revered sandwich-board Man of the revolution ; that somebody has put his worst ; most famous poem in a glass-case in the British Museum-- however if I had known it I would have excluded him just the same.
He is all blood, dirt & sucked sugar stick. ”
