Lost+Poets+of+WWI

Created by: Margaret Kerrigan

__ The Lost Poets of World War One __ Rupert Brooke was born 1887. He went to Rugby school with his father as the house master. He went
 * 1. Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) **

above and beyond in both academics and athletics. In 1906 Rupert went to King's College in

Cambridge. Here he was known for his good looks, his charm, and his intelligence. At King's College

Rupert gained and interest in acting and was the president of the University Fabian Society. In 1909

Rupert published his first poem and in 1911 he published his first book called "Poems".While Rupert

was working on his dissertation on Jon Webster and Elizabethan Dramatists, he wrote a poem called

"The Old Vicarage, Grantchester". This poem made this house famous. Rupert was popular in

both literary and political circles. He became friends with Winston Churchill, Henry James, E. M.

Forster, Maynard Keynes, Virginia Woolf, and Edward Thomas. Although he was very popular, his

love life was not happy. Between 1908 and 1912 he fell in love with three women. These women were

Noel Olivier who was the youngest daughter of the governor of Jamaica, KaCox who was the president

of the University Fabian Society before Rupert, and Cathleen Nesbitt who was a British actress. None

of these relationships lasted very long. After the third one failed he left England and traveled in France

and Germany for several months. When Rupert returned to England, he accepted a fellowship at

King's College and spent some time in Cambridge and London. In 1912 he put together an anthology, a

collection of selected writings by an author, called "Georgian Poetry". Georgian Poets wrote in an anti-

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;">Victorian style and used unrefined themes and subjects such as friendship and love. Critics viewed

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;">Rupert's poetry as too sentimental and lacking depth but they also thought that it reflected the mood in

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;">England during the years that led up to World War One. In 1913, after Rupert had a mental breakdown,

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;">he traveled to America, Canada, and the South Seas. During his trip he wrote some essays and some of

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;">his best poems such as "Tiare Tahiti" and "The Great Lover." When he returned to England,

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;">World War One broke out. Rupert enlisted in the Royal Navy Division. During this time he wrote his

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;">most famous work called "1914 and other poems". In 1915 after taking part in the Antwerp Expedition

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;">he died of blood poisoning.

__** A Channel Passage **__**:** Robert Brooke

The damned ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quick

My cold gorge rose; the long sea rolled; I knew

I must think hard of something, or be sick;

And could think hard of only one thing--you!

You, you alone could hold my fancy ever!

And with you memories come, sharp pain, and dole.

Now there's a choice--heartache or tortured liver!

A sea-sick body, or a you-sick soul!

Do I forget you? Retchings twist and tie me,

Old meat, good meals, brown gobbets, up I throw.

Do I remember? Acrid return and slimy,

The sobs and slobber of a last year's woe.

And still the sick ship rolls. 'Tis hard, I tell ye,

To choose 'twixt love and nausea, heart and belly.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">John McCrae was born on November 30 1872, in Guelph, Ontario. He was a Canadian poet and a
 * 2. <span style="font-family: Times,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;">John McCrae (1872-1918) **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">doctor during World War One. He wrote the famous memorial poem "In Flanders Fields". He attended

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">the Guelph Collegiate and Vocational Institute and later he went to study medicine at the University of

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Toronto. In Toronto he rose to the command of the Toronto Militia, and he published some of his own

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">poems. John served in the artillery durring the Boer War. When John returned he was recognized as the

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">professor of pathology at the University of Vermont. He taught at the University of Vermont until 1911.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">In 1910 he went with Lord Grey, the governor general of Canada on a canoe trip to Hudson Bay. When

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">World War One started, John was appointed as a field surgeon in the Canadian artillery. In 1915 he was

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">in charge of a field hospital during the the battle of ypres. John's good fried Alexis Helmer was killed

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">during battle.. It was during Alexis' burial that John was inspired to write his famous poem "In Flanders

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Fields". It was written on May 3,1915 and published later in the year. In 1918 while he was serving at

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">the field hospital John caught pneumonia and meningitis. John McCrae died on January 28 1918.

__** In Flanders Fields: **__ John McCrae In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days age We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.


 * 3. Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Wilfred Owen was born on March 18, 1893. He was the oldest of four children and he attended the

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Anglican religion of evangelical school. Evangelicals believe that a man is not saved by doing good

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">works but by having faith in the redeeming power of Christ's sacrifice. Although Wilfred rejected much

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">of his belief his education influenced the topics and themes of his poems. Some of these topics or

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">themes were sacrifice, biblical language, and hell. In 1913 Wilfred moved to Bordeaux, France and

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">became an English teacher at the Berlitz School of Languages. A year later he became a private teacher

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">for a successful family in the Pyrenees. October 21, 1915 Wilfred enlisted in the Artist's Rifles. He

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">trained for fourteen months in England. In 1917 he was drafted to France. This time was known as the

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">worst war winter. Wilfred fought in the war for four months. This is what most of his war poetry was

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">based off of. After this experience, because he was shocked by the horrors of war, he went to the

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh. On August 1918 one of WIlfred 's friends, was also a great

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">war poet, was severely injured and sent back to England. After this, Wilfred returned to France.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">War war even worse than before. Seven days before the war ended, Wilfred was killed in one of the last

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">battles of the war.

__** Futility: **__ Wilfred Owen

Move him into the sun-- Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds,-- Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides, Full-nerved-- still warm,-- too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? -- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?


 * 4. Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Isaac Rosenberg was born on November 25, 1890. He was a Jewish English poet who was one of the greatest British

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">war poets. His most famous poems are "Poems from the Trenches". His parents were Russian immigrants from the

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">working class. Isaac went to school until he was fourteen. His parents were to poor to send him to Cambridge or

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Oxford, so Isaac became an apprentice at a firm of art publishers and studied at the School of Birckbeck College. When

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">his apprenticeship was over, three Jewish women supplied him everything he needed to go to the Slade School of Art so

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Isaac could pursue his dream for painting. At the Slade School of art he also developed in poetry writing. In 1914 Isaac

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">went to South Africa because of health reasons. He was unable to have a career in portrait painting. Isaac returned to

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">England in 1915 and joined the Bantam Batallion, fortieth division. Isaac expressed his destination in war through his

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">letters and poems. He doubted his talent as a writer and painter. He wnated to use his war experiences to refine his

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">poetry after the war. Isaac didn't make it to the end of the war. He was killed on April 1, 1918 while he was on night

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">patrol.

__**Break of Day in the Trenches:**__ Isaac Rosenberg The darkness crumbles away. It is the same old druid Time as ever, Only a live thing leaps my hand, A queer sardonic rat, As I pull the parapet's poppy To stick behind my ear. Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew Your cosmopolitan sympathies. Now you have touched this English hand You will do the same to a German Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure To cross the sleeping green between. It seems you inwardly grin as you pass Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes, Less chanced than you for life, Bonds to the whims of murder, Sprawled in the bowels of the earth, The torn fields of France. What do you see in our eyes At the shrieking iron and flame Hurled through still heavens ? What quaver--what heart aghast? Poppies whose roots are in man's veins Drop, and are ever dropping; But mine in my ear is safe-- Just a little white with the dust.


 * 5. Alan Seeger (1888-1916) **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Alan Seeger was born June 22, 1888 in New York City. As a child, he grew up on Staten Island. At age twelve he and

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">his family moved to Mexico city. At age fourteen, he was sent to a boarding school at Hackley School in Tarrytown,

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">New York. In the summers he would spend his time in Mexico. On September 1906, Alan entered Harvard University.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">During his time at Harvard he made friends with another poet named John Reed.Alan graduated in June 1910 with a

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">honors degree in Celtic Literature.August 24, 1914 Alan volunteered as a private in the Foreign Legion, French army,

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">He wounded on February 1915. He was removed to Biarritz in April. He rejoined his regiment in May. Alan Seeger was

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">killed while fighting on July 4 1916. It was reported that he sang to encourage his comrades as he bled to death. "I have

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">a Rendevous with death" was the most popular poem of the war.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; display: block; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; padding-left: 14px; padding-top: 13px;"><span style="color: #3c605b; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">**__I Have A Rendezvous With Death__ by Alan Seeger ** <span style="border-collapse: collapse; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; padding-left: 14px; padding-top: 20px;">I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air— I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my eyes and quench my breath— It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep, Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear... But I've a rendezvous with Death At midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous.

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