Article World War 1 Poets

 “Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori”. It is sweet and glorious to die for your country. This phrase reflected the earliest thoughts about the war that would cost the lives of millions of young men. This year, V6T once again participated in the reenactment of this horrible period in our history, also known as the First World War.

In class we studied the war poems of soldiers such as Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Names of men that have been forgotten by the public, but nonetheless have meant a great deal to the perception of the First World War throughout history. At the start of the 20th century there hadn’t been a great war for ages, and everyone was filled with optimistic and nationalistic feelings. This changed when the truth hit the exhausted and desperate men fighting in the trenches, when they realized that the phrase “We’ll be home for Christmas” might have been a little too naive.

From that time on, the poems reflected the change in attitude. Not only of the soldiers, but of the Great War itself as well. Everyone longed for home and an end of the war, and the poets took it upon themselves to share the horrors of the trenches with the people back home. The poems became increasingly dark, filled with sadness and resentment.

All of this seemed to be too far away from us to really understand what had happened in those dark hours. We appreciated the poems and thought about things like symbols, onomatopoeias and what we would have for lunch, but that was it.

That is, until we had the workshop that accompanied our poetry course: the “First World War Poetry” workshop by the Phileas Fogg Theatre Company. Needless to say we were pretty nervous, as we did not have a clue about what to expect. We were greeted by a man and woman, one dressed as a soldier, the other as a lady from 1916. We were divided into two groups, each group led by one actor.

They took us ‘through’ the war: the excitement at the beginning while recruiting new, young soldiers; the boredom in the trenches once the soldiers were in the stalemate that would last till the end of the war; the desperate and suicidal acts of the soldiers who could not take it anymore. We all played these characters and read out loud the poems that were incorporated into our play. We were handed real props, heard gunfire and felt the smoke sting in our throats as we made our way through the improvised battlefield, prepared to face the inevitable. Our time in the trenches ended with a single soldier standing amongst the remnants of the battleground, the field filled with the bodies of broken men, who gave all they had for a pointless war that had raged on for way too long.

As the final poem was read out loud, the last sentence still ringing in our ears, we slowly got up and consoled our teacher, who had burst into sobs. Some of us hid our own emotions, before we collected our bags and silently left the classroom. This had been so different from what we had expected, so much more than we had thought. As Siegfried Sassoon had said, long before any of us had even existed: “Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.”

Xayide van der Schaaff