The written word can often convey meaning and sentiment better than any other medium especially when there is a tragic intimacy to the subject matter. This is exemplified by the stoic and heartfelt poetry that came out of the Great War. Young men, some barely more than boys, died in the mud and cold in the fields of France and Belgium. Their deaths were immense, grotesque and frequent in the crucible of human misery that we now call the western front. They died in a time where CNN correspondents were not readily on the scene with cameras and home footage of conflict and disasters could not be uploaded to YouTube in seconds. Information, in general, was hard to distribute to the public. It was in these circumstances where poetry could shine as the optimum medium to convey the ground level mindsets of individuals who are living through some most brutal experiences imaginable.
These Wartime Poems not only profoundly affected the public at the time, but they would go on to become staples of remembrance, culture and civic pride.
Canada’s has “In Flanders Fields” as it’s national contribution to this tradition, but it might prove interesting to investigate its counterpart from across the pond.
The Watson will now further examine the history and impact of one of these poems: “ For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon.
One of the best known and widely recited poems in Britain and across the commonwealth, from this period, is Laurence Binyon’s “For the Fallen”. This poem is about loss and remembrance yet it was written in 1914 and by a civilian, not a soldier. This is strangely prophetic given the national excitement that still surrounded the conflict in its early days. His sentiments would eventually reflect the zeitgeist of Britain when the death toll began to rise dramatically. Binyon had a long career at the British Museum and became a renowned academic. During the war, he volunteered as an orderly at a military hospital in France, as he was too old to enlist as a soldier himself. The now famous poem was first published in The Times on September 21, 1914
The poem’s most famous verse has a subtle reference to Shakespeare. When Enobarbus comes back to Rome in play Antony and Cleopatra he proclaims with some excitement Cleopatra’s eternal youth and beauty: ‘‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/Her infinite variety’’. This language is similar to that used in the poem, “Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.“.
Not only is this verse intrinsically elegant and poignant, but it samples and derives from the culture that bore it.
It seems fitting that this lament has impressed on English culture in much the same way as the works of England’s most famous bard.
Here is the entire text of the poem for your convenience: