Professor David Peimer
German Poets of World War 1: A Contrast to the British Poets?

Professor David Peimer - German Poets of World War 1: A Contrast to the British Poets

- Okay, thanks so much, Judy, for everything as always. So, hi everybody, and hope everybody is well. I’m going to look today at World War I poetry, specifically some of the couple of the German playwrights, German poets, and some of the British poets. And I’m sure most of us know some of the great poems, Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, and so on. But some of the German ones to look at as well and see the contrast between the two, where they, in a way are bit similar, but where they’re quite different also, in the use of language, in the ideas, in the role of nationalism, and many other things that come into it. Just to mention that next week I’m going to be looking at films of the First World War. Obviously, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” in the recent version, but also a couple of other ones. The Jean Renoir and some other fantastic films made of that whole period, and some of the more contemporary movies as well. So, why look at it? I mean, obviously we’re looking at representations of Germany, German nationalism, British nationalism as well, French, and obviously many other countries. At the same time I think what’s really important is that because we’re looking at Germany over this period on lockdown, and as we all know, 1870s was German unification, which had gone with a rise in German nationalism. And of course, concomitant was more than the stirrings of German antisemitism, which of course reaches its catastrophic endpoint, you know, much later. But the German nationalism reaches a catastrophic point under the Kaiser with this war.

So, what has been leading up from the 1870s as a contrast to the enlightenment, or let’s say the impulse of the enlightenment and the celebration of reason and science over religion and superstition and belief and faith is concomitant, is the rise of nationalism leading to the emergence of the German Reich, the German nationalism, in contrast to British and obviously French primarily. So, in a way these poets, I think are very aware of it. And I want to look at some of the poetry, that’s the overall canvas, if we like, or the context in which these young guys are writing. The other really important thing is we need to remember, they are so young, they’re in their early 20s, some of them, they’re late teens, mid-20s when they’re writing this. Almost all of them, except for one or two that I’m going to look at today, were dead before the end of the war, 1918, before they were 24, 25, some of them, or even younger. So, there’s an understanding of a totally different perception of youth. So, it’s youth who have obviously come in with certain nationalistic ideals from both sides. I’m going to just use German and British at the moment, because we’re not looking at French, or Italian, or Russian, or other poets of the First World War, primary focus on Germany, given the focus for lockdown at the moment. So, and I’m going to look at a couple of the unknown or lesser known Jewish writers as well on the German side and Austrian side, as well as on the English side.

So, in essence, war up ‘till this time has primarily been armies. Let’s think of an Napoleonic period, you know, large mass armies. But armies going to the field to fight and people joining up obviously for nationalistic and other spirited adventure and ideals, if one likes. In addition, the ideals of the French Revolution post Napoleonic period and so on. Here, what we have is they might have joined up for those reasons. We certainly see this in “All Quiet on the Western Front” and with these poets. But pretty quickly, as we all know, and I’m not going to go into it too much, we all know the images, catastrophe of nearly 19 million young men being slaughtered in the muddy fields of Vlaandere, Belgium, France, the low countries. So, the extraordinary use of mechanisation, machines, industry, technology, the height of the rationals of the rational side of the enlightenment with technology is being put to use in mechanised weapons of mass destruction. The beginnings of the tank, the aeroplane, all these things, of course in communications on the battlefield. I think what changes, and we look at the change in war today, 'cause I’m, let’s call it an amateur student of war, in history of war and the writings about it. And today, of course it’s much more, you know, as one great British historian put it, you need three things. You need this spooks, you need the geeks, and you need some thugs.

So, you need this books, the spies, obviously like any war from ancient times to now, you need the geeks, the cyber warfare, which is absolutely the current and future change, massive change in warfare. And you need some thugs who’re going to actually go out onto the battlefield and carry these things out. Bottom line, killing other young people or killing people, civilians. And so the war doesn’t necessarily just repeat itself, it does change. It’s not only the technology, there are different impulses that drive it, I think. And obviously there’s a lot that is similar, nationalism being the biggest. So, inside these writers there’s the idea of subverting the notion of the heroic, the heroic soldier, the heroic leader, you know, the captain, even the pilot, the captain of the ship, and obviously the captain of the field is the heroics, is the romantic dream of youth to go out and fight and come back and be accorded accolades and reward in some sense from one’s own society. And then of course, the sheer horror, and the horror, and the horror, as it dawns on them what is really going on and what war is really all about. Total change in the attitude towards the heroic, the romantic, and the sense of youth, because it’s a youth utterly slaughtered and destroyed. Goethe’s great trilogy coming out of the German tradition in literature where he spoke about the three primary drives in any human society. But of course, he’s talking about German society primarily, of war, piracy, and trade. And I think if we understand Goethe’s insight for those three words, we can see inside all of this there is obviously war, obviously piracy, but not just on the seas, is piracy of colonial, or let’s say imperial dreams, British empire, French, German emerging more and more.

And obviously as always, trade. We have the heights of the colonial project in Britain toward the end of the 19th century, early 20th century. The height of Victorian empire from, you know, we all know it’s stretching from India to Africa and so on. And the colonial project from the British point of view summed up, I think by David Livingston quite well with the three Cs, Christianize, civilise, commercialise. That verses Goethe’s three, three ideas of war, piracy, and trade. We get the idea of war itself, a heightened intensity linked to youth, almost like a drug. A wonderful American short story, a novelist short story writer novelist, Tim O'Brien, who was a Vietnam veteran wrote these wonderful, brilliant stories, “War is like love. It’s like a drug, it’s not only adrenaline, but it’s endorphins. It’s all these things in the moment. But of course, the catastrophic horror that it can lead to is forgotten, but then always comes.” And then we go on with Brecht, “War is business by other means.” Paraphrasing Brecht here. Clausewitz, “War as Politics by other Means.” And so we go on and on, moral choice, self-interest, nationalism, all these things are playing out. And what I’m trying to do, they’re complicated. And these young guys, these extraordinary young poets on the German side and the English side are trying in their own way in the mud and filth and death of the trenches, trying to understand it, trying to put words to what’s almost unspeakable.

So, and where’s the moral imperative? Wars always usually involve a moral choice, a huge, you know, not any goodies and baddies, but a moral choice which justifies self-interest, which justifies killing, which justifies slaughter of whatever kind from both sides. Where is the moral imperative? It’s so literally muddied and blurred in this war. So, it’s from this point of view again, that they’re writing. Hemingway, who’s for me one of the most, well, I love his writing, and he’s for me one of the most interesting and brilliant writers. Hemingway in a story of his called, “Men at War.” He wrote, “The only true writing that came through during the First World War was in poetry.” Hemingway identifies at poetry. And later I would add in “All Quiet on the Western Front” and some other novels, of course, which were made into films, which I’ll look at next week. But Hemingway is identifying, that’s a fascinating thing, that poetry is the primary means to that these young guys are later going to communicate or communicating during, while they’re alive, during the war. Why choose poetry? It’s a brief form of expression. It’s a complete reaction to romantic poetry of Schiller and others going before in Germany, much more along the lines of Heine, spoken about Heine’s ironic attitude. Heine’s as Nitra called him, “He had divine malice.” Heine was ironic, he was satirical, he was subverting because of his own Tripoli alienated identity of German and Jewish and poet and his works banned. And he’s sent to, he’s got to go live in Paris. He can’t publish his works in Germany and so on. So, and Schiller is the romantic, ultimate of the romantic poets in German literature of the whole 19th century. So, they’re reacting against that. The British poets are reacting against the romantic poetry of imperialism, of the rise of the British empire and the British and conquer and civilise and Christianize and commercialise.

So, it’s a reaction against that, what today we might just quite simple term, just call it flowery language, you know, cut to the chase. It’s gritty realism. It’s tough, but it has a beautiful echo in the language. Some of the really better poets, which I’ll look at very soon. So, in the use of the language is a complete shift and it’s a break from the enlightenment dream, you know, of combining the rational with beauty and romantic, heroic, and all of that stuff. Think of “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” which is written in a fairly romantic, heroic way about youth. But of course, they’re going to die these guys. But that’s not the primary focus in the poem, it’s the rhythm of war and the drumbeat and the passion in the lustful war. More in the original perm. So, it’s a complete change to harsh, gritty, cut to the chase realism, cut the flowery, cut sentimentality, cut it all, and just tell it like it is. And it changes literature. Hemingway obviously picks up on it completely. It changes literature forever. No longer can that romantic era, it’s gone. We are almost back to the ancient Greeks of Homer, and the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey.” The grotesque, gruesome details of war, and the poet’s reflection on it with Homer and the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey.” We’re back to that, we’re back to some of the other poets of other countries and times.

And that has gone all the way through the 20th into our 21st century. And from the poets spread into the literature, the novels, I would argue, and many, many other forms of literature. Just to give one example, on the Battle of the Somme, on the first day of the battle there were 57,000 casualties and over 20,000 dead, just in one day in the Battle of the Somme. It’s an extraordinary, if you think about it, this is in the beginning of the 20th century. We’re not talking yet of major bombs and atomic warfare, obviously. As the phrases that we all know, “The soldiers were lions led by donkeys.” But more than that, that’s a wonderful poetic phrase, is the utter disregard by the rulers for the young kids they’re ruling. Life is barely worth a penny on either side, from the Kaiser in the German side to the British side. So, this image of these utterly incompetent donkeys, at the helm of the war also rises. So, it’s a clash of generations that starts of the young guys reacting to that of the older generation of the men in the general sitting wherever and making these decisions. So, in our age, where democracy is obviously on the retreat, or at least being seriously, seriously attacked in so many ways, where we have to think of the self, of young people writing compared to the older. How did it change art? We have the aesthetics of what come down in art as trauma, from sketches to sculpture and many others. I mean, that’s a nice neat little scholarly phrase, the aesthetics of trauma.

But it’s the beginning of not only post-traumatic stress and shell shock and all those things that we know of, but it’s a writing, a literature of trauma. Now that’s for the first time. Reading war poets going back two, 3,000 years, we don’t have that. Yes, we have the grotesqueness, we have the horror, we have the slaughterhouse, the meat grinder of war and killing, killing, killing. But we don’t have the trauma that goes with it. And the poets are trying to express something of that in a very youthful way. So, all of this has changed. It’s a shell shock civilization, it’s a shell shocked sense of where civilization in the West has supposedly reached, as we all know. And it’s reflected in this fragmentary, gritty, realist style of the poetry. And of course, we have many of the movements in art, surrealism, expressionism, Darwinism, so many of the others. The nightmare vision of society takes over from the enlightenment at best, a deferred dream at worst, a nightmare as well. Modernism is shaped. Modernism for me from the 20th century is shaped by this trauma. And it becomes obviously the ultimate catastrophe in the Second World War, far greater than the first. Nothing compares to it. So, the collective trauma that we now experience embedded in history that these poets try to articulate is inside the language. And it continues all the way through, I would suggest the 20th century into our times. Words like mad and brutal and seductive and mass psychosis, and so many of these other words. And trauma is example for me of a shell-shocked civilization that thought it had reached enlightened heights and with technology and reason and advancement and empire building and so on. And, you know, taking civilization to the so-called primitive peoples. All of that is completely shattered in a couple of years. It’s also an understanding of the use of propaganda.

And these guys get it. Think of Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est.” You know, understanding how propaganda is used to clothe grandiose nationalism. The cynicism that it engenders in youth towards the ruling clause and the war planners has led to an aesthetic in art and in poetry that is utterly devoid of rhetoric, euphemism, romantic, heroic stuff. So, all these words of glory and honour and courage start to sound pretty hollow in contrast to the obscenity that these guys are experiencing. Hemingway wrote in “A Farewell to Arms” 1929, and he’s referring to the First World War, and of course to the Spanish War. “Abstract words such as glory, honour, courage, were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments, the numbers of the dead, of the soldiers marching, and the dates.” It’s Hemingway. And lastly, again, of course, as I mentioned, and this does have a reference to Heine and some of the others in German literature of irony, is a way of capturing this non-sentimental, tougher, gritty kind of poetry, which reflects our times. However, we need to be aware that in 1914 when war broke out, some of the artists were some of the biggest cheerleaders. Britain, France, Germany, Italy. This is Thomas Mann in 1914. We all know the great novel of Thomas Mann, “The Magic Mountain” and others. Thomas Mann wrote in 1914, “War, we felt purified, liberated, we felt an enormous hope.” That’s one of the great German writers of all time. This is Arnold Schoenberg writing.

“When the First World War began, I was proud to be called to arms as a soldier. I did my duty enthusiastically as a true believer in the House of Habsburg, in its wisdom of 800 years in the act of government and in the consistency of a monarch’s lifetime as compared with a short lifetime of every republic.” This is what Schoenberg wrote to Alma Mahler. “Now comes the reckoning. Now we will throw these mediocre kitschmongers into slavery, and teach them to venerate the German spirit and to worship the German God.” That’s Arnold Schoenberg writing to Alma Mahler. So, there are many other examples imbued with the sense of the heroic, the romantic, the youthful, all of that, the nationalistic spirit. And yet, that is what is shell shocked and shattered so powerfully. Okay, want to get into some of it now. This is “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which I’m going to talk about next week together with some of the other movies. This is Isaac Rosenberg, I’m sure some people know, a really interesting writer. And from Lithuanian Jewish immigrant family to Britain in 1897. They moved, the family moved to the East End of London. He had chronic bronchitis. He went to South Africa in 1914, hoping that the warmth, the sun would cure, help cure him. His sister Mina lived in Cape Town. He returns to Britain in 1915, couldn’t find a job. So, he joined the British Army in October 1915. And he sent half of his pay every month to his mother. And in a letter he wrote to his mother, “I never joined the army for patriotic reasons, I needed the job.” So, it’s very clear, it’s down to earth. He sees it clearly for what it is, nothing patriotic. He applied for transfer, he eventually gets into one of the old Jewish battalions and some of the others.

Anyway, April 18th, 1918 he was killed on the Western Front. His self-portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. And then in 1985, Rosenberg was among the 16 called the Great War Poets, commemorated in a stone in Westminster Abbey Poet’s Corner. And we all know the inscription on the stone there is Wilfred Owen’s great line. “My subject is War, and the pity of War. My poetry is in the pity.” Shorty line and the irony and the savage satire inside Wilfred Owens’ phrase. Rosenberg wrote in 1916 another letter. “I’m determined this war with all its powers for devastation will not master my poetry writing. That is if I’m lucky enough to come out of it all right.” So, Isaac Rosenberg, here he is. This is a self-portrait of him. Such young, such extraordinary young at his age. “Break of Day in the Trenches.” I’ve edited it here. “A live thing leaps my hand, a queer sardonic rat.” Think of the muddy trenches, the rats. “Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew your cosmopolitan sympathies. Now you have touched this English hand. You’ll 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.” So young and yet capturing in his gritty way the English, the German were just killing each other.

You know, it’s war, queer sardonic rat. You know, the rats are the same. The grass is the same. You know, you’re going to move between us. You’ll carry on rats. You’re worth more than we are. “Break of Day in the Trenches.” This is another perm by Isaac Rosenberg. “Nobody Told Me to Oil My Boots.” “Here, while the mad guns curse overhead, and tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor. Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead, died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor, but for a dream, born in a herdsman’s shed. And for the secret scripture of the poor.” Ambiguous, gritty, tough, get to the chase kind of writing. And forget about all the glory, and the honour, and the romantic heroic nonsense, you know, of the propaganda as to why they should be there. So, this is young Rosenberg trying to understand in his own way with poetry. And look at the total change from the Schiller and from the Byronic. All the romantic stuff that has gone before. This is here. This is Yvan Goll. Just going to read a little bit. He was a German poet, very young, and he fled Germany. He escaped to Switzerland where he lived for quite a while, and he managed to avoid the army, avoid the war. “Requiem for the Dead of Europe.” “Let me lament the exodus of so many men from their time. When young widows sit by lamplight, mourning for husbands lost. I hear the blonde-voiced children crying for God their father at bedtime.” Blonde-voiced obviously the German.

“On every mantelpiece stand photographs smiling, true to the past, at every window stand lonely girls whose burning eyes are bright with tears. In every garden lilies are growing, as there’s a grave to prepare. In every city of every land you can hear the passing bell. I hear it more clearly every day.” It’s ironic, it’s satirical, it’s savage in a deceptively simple way, deceptive with almost a bit of beauty. “I hear it more clearly every day.” He’s so young, Yvan Goll when he is writing this, you know, “You can hear the passing bell.” That’s what he’s hearing. “Garden lilies are growing, there’s a grave.” So, they’re totally aware these young guys. Life and death every day. This is Franz Janowitz, one of the most interesting I think and important of the German poets. And here a picture of him, obviously in his German military uniform. Look how young he is when he is living and writing. He was a Jewish poet and he was a Jewish German soldier. Called up, obviously fought in the front. He fought on the Eastern Front against the Imperial Russian Army at the time. 1917 he died of wounds. And two years after his death, his poems were published in Munich. He was born in Podĕbrad on the Elbe, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Youngest of four children. Father owned a factory. Franz went to school in Prague. And there he became involved with the Prague literary scene. He was friendly, Max Brod, Franz Werfel, Franz Kafka, and other German speaking Prague-based writers and German writers. So, he knew them, he was friendly with them.

Part of them. He has the terrible misfortune to be called up and to go. In 1911 Janowitz went to Leipzig University, studies chemistry, switched to philosophy in Vienna. And Max Brod published his poems in 1913, the remarkable Max Brod who did so much for Kafka and for many other writers did it for him as well. There’s this remarkable Jewish circle of poets and writers coming out of the Germanic tradition, which is fascinating to me. And Rosenberg is one who comes out of the British tradition, and how they’re looking at the same events that are going on in their lives. And this is a poem by Janowitz. “One day is, one day is gone. Does anybody see around it? The world remains old and dumb. One day was, one day was given, who rose from the grave? With blind eyes and stony mouth to stare down God. One day will, one day will come. Who will recognise the daily guest when his old face suddenly speaks with his iron lips?” And for me it’s a fantastic poem by this young German Jewish writer. “One day has gone. Anybody see it’s old? The world remains old and dumb.” This is youth talking. “One day, who rose from the grave with blind eyes and stony mouth to stare down God.” We get so much of the total change in attitude to God of whichever religion, Judaism, Christianity, whatever religion he’s talking about, Janowitz. “One day will come, who will recognise the daily guest when his old face suddenly speaks with iron lips?” Just that image of iron lips in what we know about the iron cross and iron. And you know, in terms of warfare, especially the German machine, and the English and the ally machine, we get it. It’s so gritty, it’s cut to the chase kind of writing. No illusions, life and death in the flick of a scuttling rat.

You know, that’s really what it is. So, Janowitz for me, and there’s quite a few other poems. But he is really interesting, because I think he’s talking not so much about nationalism. And although the iron lips and some of those references, stony mouth, of course. But that rage is at God. And the propaganda use, you know, you’re fighting for your country and fighting for your God, your king, your Kaiser, whoever. It’s all nonsense. And that would be the references to stare down God, which would also mean God’s appointed Kaiser, the empire, the emperors. So, total change, nothing romantic, nothing heroic at all in this guy. Here, Georg Trakl, was also a German and Austrian poet. You know, we just look at this guy, look how young he is. Look at the age. Look at what we feel when when we look at Georg Trakl. Can’t help thinking this is a young German boy, same as Janowitz, same as from the other side. Isaac Rosenberg, trying to figure out what the hell are they being caught up in, and where’s it leading? 20 years after the end of this war, it leads to the Second World War. Georg Trakl from Salzburg. He was in the Austria-Hungarian Army. He was in command of a field hospital, filled with wounded soldiers and mentally collapsed as they were called, or shell shocked. He tried to shoot himself to escape the screams of the wounded and the dying in the hospital. He was caught just before he shot himself. He was sent to a mental hospital. He took an overdose of cocaine and died. This is a young Austrian-German young guy, poet. I’m going to read just a few lines from a couple of his poems. It’s so similar for me to Janowitz, the rage at God empire. Similar to what Rosenberg and later I’m going to look at Wilfred Owen and some of the others.

“A furious God spilled blood. It silently, this God gathers with a moon-like coolness. The candle gleams silently in the dark room. A silver hand puts the light out. Windless, starless night. I am a shadow far from the darkening villages. I drank the silence of God. Cold metal, walks on my forehead, a light that goes out in my mouth. Cold metal walks on my forehead, I think of soldiers down the hill under the dying sun, laughing blood plunges speechless under the oak trees. A blazing steel helmet fell with a clatter from purpled foreheads. The autumn night comes down so coolly of a broken young boy’s bodies. The convent nurse is silent. Cold metal walks on my forehead. I drank the silence of God.” Trying to capture, you can feel it all. I’m not going to try and just analyse every poem, but that sense of it’s God, which means God and empire and emperor, the German side, the British side, whichever. What the hell are we doing? Total mad brutality. Another poem of his, ‘cause he was on the Eastern Front, on the Russian front. This is poem, it’s called “On the Eastern Front.” “The ominous anger of messes of men is a wild winter storm. The purple surge of battle. Stars with broken eyebrows wave to dying soldiers far below on earth. The moon chasers shocked woman from the bleeding stairways. Wild wolves have broken through the door. Wild wolves have broken through our door.” It’s so, it’s in a way, is it banal? But it’s no, for me, it’s so simple, evocative. We know the context, the youth, how they’re writing, when and how. And it changes poetry forever.

What can I say? And similar to what the English writers are writing. That’s young George Trakl. August Stramm, also pretty young. Another one of the German poets. And he wrote a lot of quite short poems. And it’s a complete change, very brief, short, again, cut to the point. Can always imagine them just quickly writing in pen and pencil and paper. And then, you know, go up over the trenches. I’m going to read a couple of his poems here. “Devastation.” “The sky is wind and bodies march, march on a thousand bootsoles. The sky is wind and bodies advance, advance onto a thousand automatic machines. The sky is wind and bodies crack, crack into a thousand fragments.” Another poem of his called “Casualty.” “The earth claws your hand. I hear the murmurs of a young widow, I dunno where they’re from.” Another poem of his called, “War Grave.” “Flowers, insulting, pollen, bashful, shimmer, tears, glazes forgotten. Life and death are one. And the nightingale and death are one. Only time goes forward.” So, they’re trying to find such different ways of writing, such different ways of using language to somehow capture their experience. And I think we have to imagine they’ve been brought up, you know, probably mostly middle class or upper middle. They’ve got a good education. They’ve been to university these guys. They have the hopes and the dreams of enlightenment, and where Germany is going to go, where Britain is going to go. Civilise the world and Christianize and civilise the world. And you know, all of that. And what do they discover? They discover slaughterhouse where life is is worth less than a rat. Okay, that’s some of the German ones, which I think is very interesting always to look at. And of course, this is the great one we all know.

John McRae’s, “Flanders fields.” “Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row and 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 ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow. Loved and we loved. And now we lie in Flanders fields.” To me, the rage and the anger inside, you can feel it. And yet it’s so soft and gently written. You know, it’s love and love and dawn. And so it’s all the rest of it. But let’s never forget. And that’s the irony that I’m talking about. Again, the ironic voice coming out in these English poets. The German ones I think are more raging at God and emperor and Reich and propaganda of nationalism and so on. These guys do not talk about God so much. The English poets, they talk about the propaganda of heroism and honour and courage. Of the values that have been instilled in them through the propaganda. To go on to the great one, Wilfred Owen, who for me was the greatest of all, 'cause he combines a lot of these aspects of the German and British poets in his writing, I think quite remarkably. And just look how young this guy is when he dies, and he’s killed a week before the Armistice was signed in November, 1918, a week before he dies. One of the greatest poets, I think of the 20th century. He combined this gritty realism, which he got, well, he was imbued with from Siegfried Sassoon and utterly unromantic ideas.

And I’m going to look at his poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” and also the “Anthem for Doomed Youth.” But trying to look at it differently from when we all had to study it, you know, as 16-year-old high school kids, when it didn’t really have much meaning. Well, in the way that I’m sure a lot of us were taught it. So, he and Sassoon met one afternoon, won’t go into the details, in the hospital, and how they met each other. But nevertheless, the influence between the two was enormous. Although Sassoon came from a more, a wealthier, semi-aristocratic background in England, important. Wilfred Owen did not. But still, he’s part of it all. And when you know it’s a week before the end of the war, one bullet, dead. “Dulce et Decorum Est Pro patria mori” I’ll come to that in a moment. But let’s remind ourselves of it. And I know we all know this poem so well. “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks.” What an amazing opening image. “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks.” This young guy in his early 20s, Don’t know about love, or poem, or romance, or happiness, or beauty, or nature, or anything. “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 'till on the haunting flares we turned our backs. And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Men had lost their boots, but limped on, bloodshot. All went lame, all blind. Drunk with fatigued, deaf even to the hoots of gas shells dropping softy behind. Gas, gas, quick boys. An ecstasy of fumbling, ecstasy of fumbling.” So ironic, savage. “Footing the clumsy helmets just in time. But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, and floundering like a man in fire or lime. Dimmed through the misty panes and thick green light, as under a green sea I saw him drowning.”

It’s the green with gas mask and the gas. “In all my dreams before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace behind the waggon that we flung him in, and catch and watch the white eyes writhing in his face, his hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin.” Even the devil’s sick of the sin. The devil’s fed up with all this. Look, God of the Germans, if the devil even is fed up. “I’m gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud, vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues. My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old lie, Dulce et Decorum Est Pro patria mori” Those last four lines are some of the most savage, I think ever written in poetry. And yet it done with a gentle touch. The irony of that link between savage attack on everything in his culture that he’s been brought up to believe is civilised. This is the truth. The enlightenment has stepped off the cliff like the Pied Piper and everybody has gone down. “My friend, you would not tell with such zest to children ardent for some desperate glory.” It’s an amazing line. For me it sums up everything about propaganda, everything about brainwashing young kids, boys, girls, whoever, to believe, honour, glory, romance, adventure, war for king and country, for empire, for emperor, for God. “His children ardent for some desperate glory.” It’s so thoughtful. And yet it just comes in like a knife. The old lie. And this is the quote from the ancient Roman poet Horace.

It is, which means from the Latin it is good and fitting to die for one’s country. So, he’s referring back to all the civilization, to the Greeks and the Romans, all the way through Western civilization. I’m going to take it all and just throw it over the edge of the cliff with what’s going on. You know, it is good and fitting to die for one’s country. So, he does it in a phrase or two, the gritty, the realism, the tough writing and the resilient drive to just capture what he’s really feeling and what he’s been brought up to believe and told. It’s all a lie. It’s all nonsense, ancient nonsense. It’s illusion, “To children ardent for some desperate glory.” I’m sure we all remember reading that for the first time. That line actually used to strike me even more than the quote, the Latin quote from ancient Roman poet Horace. Wilfred Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth.” “What passing bells for those who die as cattle?” Opening line of a young guy’s poem. The link to the passing bells was the Germans, the German poets. “Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them, no prayers, no bells, no any voice of mourning save the choirs. The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells.” Whatever needed a reminder, a sensitising about the horror of war. It’s this, “Shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells.” We watch the Ukraine war so much and other wars all over the place. It is such a numbing. You look at it, you see it on TV. We look at it, we look, we see it on TV. Maybe we forget it in the next minute, 10 minutes, whatever.

But when we read this, I think it just goes straight in. And it’s a power of poetry and art that Hemingway spoke about to shake up the human heart. Or as Kafka put it, “A book must be like an axe to the frozen heart within us.” And these guys take an axe to the frozen heart within us all. You know, when you think about war. And it’s an “Anthem for Doomed Youth.” “The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells. And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall. Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds. And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.” Amazing. You know, and it’s an anthem, forget about it. Youth is toast. Youth is over before it’s even begun. You know, for Wilfred Owen, I think. I mean, these two poems for me and some of the others that Owen wrote are so remarkable, because I think in a way what I’m trying to do is capture all of the ideas I spoke about at the beginning. And I think Wilfred Owen comes the closest. From the German side to Rosenberg to certainly the others on the English side. Siegfried Sassoon, we all studied him as well, I’m sure. It’s, you know, he survived the war, lived for much longer. But he was the one to help Owen and the others be confident to write in this new way. Witty, cut to the chase, and set out your savage satire in a gentle tone, deceptively gentle. And I think he helped give courage to Owen and the others. ‘Cause let’s not forget, they’re writing against a century of poetry in the English language. And they would’ve known the European, you know, of Goethe and Schiller and Heine even, and others. They would have known all these others.

So, they’re writing against their own tradition that they would have studied briefly at university, or maybe a bit at school or read. So, they’re actually rejecting all of that. That’s what they mean here. You know, that’s what these young boys are doing. Siegfried Sassoon, this is one of the ones I love the most. “And how, at last, he died? Blown to small bits, and no one seemed to care, except that lonely woman with white hair.” It’s so gritty, simple and clear. And it begins 20th century poetry and language. As Hemingway said, “It’s the poetry that is the act taken to open up the frozen heart.” “Blown to small bits, and no one seemed to care, except that lonely woman with white hair.” You know, his mother, his aunt, his sister, whoever, you know, one person remembered him, for the rest, just a number. Bits of body. “Memory.” “For death has made me wise and bitter and strong. And I’m rich in all that I have lost.” The irony is obvious, again, the ironic ways. “The Last Meeting.” “I know that he has lost among the stars, and may return no more, but in their light.” And then the last bit from the poem here. These are just bits taken out from some of Sassoon’s poetry. “Sneak home and pray. You’ll never know the hell where youth and laughter go.” I love the way he uses rhyme and subvert it. That’s again the ironic, no sentimentality, but it’s ironic. It’s with wit that he pulls us in and shakes us up. “But death replied, 'I chose him.’ So, he went and there was silence in the summer night.” It’s so deceptively simple, it’s ironic and angry. “But death replied, ‘I choose him.’ So, he went. And there was silence in the summer night.” No sentimentality, irony, satire inside it. Okay, and then we come onto a very different kind of poet, Rupert Brooke. And I tried to find some of this amongst the Germans. Even the far, far lesser known German poets have been translated.

But there isn’t really, and it’s interesting. This guy was filled with, let’s say, the heroism, the romance, the adventures and the grandeur of the propaganda of empire. “If I should die, think only this of me. That there’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever 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. A pulse cives 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.” This is the opposite, as we can see. And I purposely left it for close to the end. It’s obvious, the propaganda. Look how often the word England and English, and you know, I have forever England and some rich earth, et cetera. I know why I’m dying. I know why I’ve been killed. I know why I don’t believe it all, go on and on. It’s obvious the meaning. And it’s called “The Soldier.” You know, you have your duty, you have your role, you have your function, you have your belief system laid out for you. We contrast Rupert Brooke, we’ve both learned, and some of the German writers, poets, and others, we get a total opposite. And it’s imbued. I want to suggest with the, what’s fascinating here is that he doesn’t talk about God. He talks, Rupert Brooke, it’s the values. It’s not even God, or king, or whatever. It’s the land of England. It’s the dream of empire for me. It’s a dream of the values of everything is cricket, fair play, decency, civilised, Christianized, commercialised. Going up to the world and conquer and help poor native savages in whatever land they live in. You know, contrasted to Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness.” You know, the horror of the horror, what’s really going on.

So, it’s all of this. It doesn’t have the irony, it doesn’t have the satire. It doesn’t have that same gritty realism of the mud and the filth and the death and the stench and the gas and everything that all the other poets, English and German, have. And this one here, “For the fallen.” Again, this is also, I’m not going to read the whole thing, but, you know, “Fallen in the cause of the free. There is music in the midst of desolation and a glory that shines upon our tears. They went with songs to the battle, they were young, straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end. They fell with their faces to the foe.” Binyon doesn’t even write with irony. It’s a complete opposite of the approach. It’s how the romantic sentimental attitude gets propagated. “A Dead Boche” by Robert Graves. “To who would read my songs of war and only hear of blood and fame. I’ll say, you’ve heard it said before, ‘War’s hell.’ And if you doubt the same, today I found in Mametz Wood a certain cure for lust of blood.” Ironic and savage inside the poetry for me. Powerful in this way and resonant in echoes. And in all these ways, it’s how these poets, go back to Hemingway again, but it’s important. It was the poets who found some way to try and articulate the feelings of a total generation slaughtered and for those who survived and would have changed. Obviously, the horror of modern mechanised warfare.

The slaughter of nearly 20 million young guys and civilians. How the enlightenment ultimately. If we’d step back and look at the bigger picture, the enlightenment is more than shell-shocked. The enlightenment is crushed in the mud of these trenches. European modernism emerges in a totally different way from the trenches of the First World War, the Western and the Eastern Front. And how it goes into the ether of catastrophic horror of the Second World War. Far more horrific than this, obviously in every way. And I think for me, how these writers ultimately are taking on all of this. And the last point I wanted to, I guess I would make is all the civilization, all the poetry, the literature, the ideals, the ideas that they have learnt is completely destroyed. And as Isaac Rosenberg says, you know, “Their life is not even worth as much as a rat.” And it is destroyed in four years of the slaughterhouse. We’re the moral imperative, which usually drives successful wars. You need some moral justification usually to fill into the heads of the young soldiers. You usually need some, you need to justify in some way. If you want to not only get morale going, but if you want to ready seriously win a war. You need who’s right, who’s wrong? You need clarity. You need a focus. All of this is thrown out the window. Vague nationalism, vague God, empire, home, the land of England, you know, the God for the Germans and the German poets. And these poets reflect that confusion. Wilfred Owen comes closest. You know, that we were told some ardent, you know, with ardent zests, we were told some cause. It’s all rubbish, it’s all nonsense what on earth are these bodies doing?

So, it shifts the perception of writing about war, of an understanding by the society about war. ‘Cause war was probably inevitable in human nature and in human society. So, it’s important our writers express it. Take away those qualities of some moral imperative. Take away the qualities of even self-interest, but some justifications and reason. And we are left with fragments. We are left with a shattering of previous ideals of enlightenment. And for me, German unification, nationalism, British empire, British nationalism. I’m not saying they’re equal in this war, I’m not saying that at all. Obviously the Austrian-Germans begin it. But it leads to a similar result. The break between youth and adults, between young boy soldiers and their leaders. So much gets totally challenged and changed that echoes through the rest of the century. Okay, let’s hold it there. I’m going to leave us finally with a little phrase from Brecht, which is of course, you know, this is from much later talking about the rise of Hitler again. “Don’t yet rejoice in his defeat. Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard Hitler, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.” He’s talking about German nationalism. He’s talking about obviously, in relation to Hitler, the blonde beast as Einstein called it. So, Brecht is, whoa, just when we think to adapt the phrase from the tagline from Jaws. Just when you think it’s safe to go back in the water, just when we think we’ve got over the worst of the wars, whoa, it’ll come in heat again. Okay, Brecht and many of these others were the same kind of gritty, direct, simple language. Trying to capture so much of the change from the early 20th century in German history, and of course, British and the world. Okay, so let me hold it here. Thanks very much. And we can go with some questions.

Q&A and Comments:

It’s from Esther, “Hi, human nature has not changed the ability to kill more.” Yep, spot on.

Q: Eileen, “I’ve read that at one point war meant opposing armies with one battle, sometimes non-combatants viewing. When did war turn into what we know of it now?”

A: Well, I think the Napoleonic period and obviously before as well, maybe with Alexander the Great and some of the Persian armies. But I mean, massive armies and Napoleon, huge armies. But there would be armies, meet in fields, fight, win or lose. I think much more brutal, obviously, before that were the Romans much more physical. Because obviously the weaponry is much more physical, brutal, you know, slaughter of each other. But I think what is interesting now, war has changed. I do think it’s need for the spooks, the geeks, and the thugs. And probably the geeks are the most important, because to quote Michael Howard, the great British historian, “Because it’s cyber war,” so it’s completely changed, I think. The nature of all and how that changes the understanding of education, technology, society, philosophy, all these things. And I think to understand it, which is for me the same as looking at art and literature and poetry and history to step back. What we’re trying to do is understand not only human nature, but the society of our times and where we might be heading. Barbara, thank you.

“The brilliant violinist Hilary Hahn, giving a recital in Chicago, is married to the German composer who won an Oscar for the music in "All Quiet on the Western Front.” Fantastic. That for me is one of the all time great films and novels. I’m going to show clips of it next week with four or five, five or six other movies. And there’s a brilliant speech by Bob Dylan in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. We talked about the three books that influenced him the most, Homer, “The Odyssey,” and “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and “Moby Dick.” It’s a brilliant understanding by Dylan. You can get it on YouTube.

Susan, “The Things They Carried” Tim O'Brien. Yeah, exactly. He’s written some fantastic, I love his short stories more actually. He captures a similar spirit. I’m talking about the ironic savage, totally unsentimental, gritty voice.

Rodney, “Haunted faith, especially Jewish faith informed the Jewish poets.” Well, I think that’s really interesting. And I think from what I understand, Rodney, and I’m hesitant to generalise, but the poets that I looked at, specifically these, they were imbued in the beginning with a nationalistic of German and fitting into Germany, but very quickly become utterly disillusioned and angry in the same way as the English poets and as the Christian German poets. And that’s what’s interesting then, there’s not much of a difference there. I mean, Janowitz is Jewish, the one that I read there. And Isaac Rosenberg on the other side is Jewish, but they’re capturing similar feelings and similar ideas that I’ve mentioned today.

Hindi, “Canada has the legacy.” Ah, of “In Flanders Fields” by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. Great, thank you.

Q: Esther, thanks. “Do you think the poets rank first place in terms of artists in explaining the world was happening in real time?”

A: Yes, I think Esther, you’re spot on. They capture the zeitgeist. What is going on in the world at their time? Sometimes poets capture it later. Let’s think of Shevchenko. He captures it. It’s a couple of decades later and others, but they’re able to tap in to the zeitgeist. That for me is the mark of a great writer. They can tap into their own zeitgeist and conscious or unconscious, doesn’t matter. And it speaks to something broad in human nature. So, it lasts beyond their time.

Rita, thank you.

Claire, “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae.

Q: One of the most famous of the war poems written by Lieutenant John, he’s a Canadian, John McCrae?“

A: Yep, they still used every Remembrance Day with the poppies.

Q: Linda, "Why was World War I romanticised?”

A: Well, I don’t think it was, I think what I’m trying to show here is Rupert Brooke and Binyon, they romanticised it, and maybe even Kipling romanticised a little bit. I purposely left him out 'cause he’s more complicated. But I don’t think most of these poets romanticised it. I think most of these German and English poets didn’t actually. And that’s why I think, again, Hemingway latches onto the fact that it’s the poets who articulate the horror and the futility of the values behind the war, not just the dying.

Claire, “Leonard Cohen recites "In Flanders Fields.” Oh, that’s great. Thank you, I’ll have a look.

Molly, “John McCrae was a Canadian physician.” Great. Okay, I love it. Lockdown is extraordinary. People from Canada, from everywhere all over. This is great.

Herbert, “Flanders Fields” is written by, great. “Flanders fields where poppies grow.” Thank you Rita. Okay, that’s great.

Peter, “Pat Barker’s "Regeneration Trilogy” of the First World War. Fantastic, thank you.

Q: Anne, “Have you seen Terence Davies recent film titled, "Benediction” about Sassoon?“

A: Yeah, I watched it, yeah. Not the whole thing, but parts of it. First part depicts his friendship with Wilfred Owen in the rehab hospital, yep. And the black and white film footage from the First World War. Absolutely, yeah. I think they spent, I think Sassoon called it, one hot cloudless autumn afternoon. Something like that.

I think Sassoon’s phrase, Peter, "It’s also amazing, Sassoon and Owen who met in the hospital suffering both from shell shock. And what I like is the literal shell shock. But to me it’s also, it’s such a wonderful metaphor. It’s a visceral, direct and gritty as a metaphor for, you know, that’s what the enlightenment’s been hit in the teeth by. Gets them ready to go back to war, exactly. Herbert, "Sassoon really hits it home.” Yep, I agree.

Margaret, “Thank you. Herbert, "Rupert Brooke reminds me of Christina.”

Rossetti, oh, that’s a really interesting combination. It’s great, Herbert, thank you.

“When I’m dead, my dearest sing. When I’m dead, my dearest sings no sad songs for me. Plant no roses.” Yeah, that’s great. Rose, “Thank you, thank you.”

It’s the Davies, the film, great.

And Claire, “I was hidden, survived. My poem is published in my memoir "Hidden Package.” My father, Holocaust survivor, my dad.“ Thank you Claire. That’s really interesting, powerful, important.

Q: "Does liberation even mean freedom,” Claire?

A: Freedom from remembering, never. Yep. Well, I think you’re touching on really important ideas here. Freedom, liberation and memory. You know, I think without memory humans can’t belong. And without memory, obviously people are going to repeat things. It’s a question of how memory is reminded or retold at different generations over time.

Q: Victor, “I read Brooke is totally ironic, which interpretation is correct?”

A: We would’ve to know more to decide. Victor, I’m going to have a discussion with you that’s really interesting that you see Rupert Brooke is ironic. I don’t, I see him as, well, more sentimental, more romantic, heroic. That’d be a fantastic discussion, thank you for that.

Merna, “Breakfast or Trump.” He once again calls for an uprising. “Yep, the bitch in heat again,” to quote Brecht’s fantastic phrase. And we always have to be aware, you know, or the other phrase from Janowitz, “The wolf is at the door.” It’s an ancient image, but we try to keep it out, but it’s going to come in.

Okay, so, thank you so much everybody, and hope you have a great rest of the weekend. And Judy, thanks so much again.