Literature of the English Language II

Prof. Ana Mara Iriarte

1) Analyse the following poem by Wilfred Owen and prepare a presentation

- Consider form, images and ideas involved. Relate to its historical context. Compare
the poem with Borgespoem Juan Lpez y John Ward

Strange Meeting
BY WILFRED OW EN
It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;

Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
Strange friend, I said, here is no cause to mourn.
None, said that other, save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . .

JUAN LPEZ Y JOHN WARD

Les toc en suerte una poca extraa.

El planeta haba sido parcelado en distintos pases, cada

uno provisto de lealtades, de queridas memorias, de un
pasado sin duda heroico, de derechos, de agravios, de una
mitologa peculiar, de prceres de bronce, de aniversarios,
de demagogos y de smbolos. Esa divisin, cara a los
catgrafos, auspiciaba las guerras.

Lpez haba nacido en la ciudad junto al ro inmvil; Ward,

en las afueras de la ciudad por la que camin Father Brown.
Haba estudiado castellano para leer el Quijote.

El otro profesaba el amor de Conrad, que le haba sido

revelado en una aula de la calle Viamonte.

Hubieran sido amigos, pero se vieron una sola vez cara a

cara, en unas islas demasiado famosas, y cada uno de los
dos fue Can, y cada uno, Abel.

Los enterraron juntos. La nieve y la corrupcin los

conocen.

El hecho que refiero pas en un tiempo que no podemos

entender.

Jorge Luis Borges, 1985

Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

S. Sassoon

Aftermath
Have you forgotten yet?
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the sameand War's a bloody game
Have you forgotten yet?
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack

And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling headsthose ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?

Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.