Poetry Across Time

Conflict

Introduce

Futility
By Wilfred Owen

Establish

Establish/Discuss

Wilfred Owen's Draft Preface, 1918

This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful. (If I thought the letter of this book would last, I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives - survives Prussia - my ambition and those names will have achieved fresher fields than Flanders...)

Establish/Discuss

Definition of 'Futility'...
1. Can you define the word futility? 2. What does its use suggest about the poet's attitude to war? 3. What other word is used within the poem that has a similar meaning?

What is Paxman's opinion of Wilfred Owen?

(noun) 1. The quality of having no useful result; uselessness. 2. Lack of importance or purpose; frivolousness. 3. A futile act or event.

Establish/Discuss

Futility
By Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen was born in Shropshire to an English and Welsh family and is best known for the war poems written whilst he served in the trenches in World War One. He died in battle only one week before the end of the war whilst leading a frontal assault on a German stronghold. His letters home to his mother show a man whose initial distaste at the vulgarity of the sweaty, noisy men he lived amongst transformed to a genuine love. He was an advocate for the men as well as being a true military hero and it his intense respect for the soldier that makes his poetry so powerful.

"Owen is the soldier's poet, because he understands what soldiering is really like, the horror and fear, alongside the dry-throated heroism. Owen is the poet for the living." Justin Featherstone (a young major who won the Military Cross in Iraq)
Authors's Ideas and Background

Futility Move him into the sun Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields half-sown. 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 earths sleep at all? WILFRED OWEN

Poem

Suggest he can't move himself. Makes us wonder why?

Futility

Technique? Purpose?

Move him into the sun Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields half-sown. Always it woke him, even in France, What profession was Until this morning and this snow. he before the If anything might rouse him now war? The kind old sun will know.

What does this mean? What do you think the poem will be about? Who is he? What does he represent?

The sun is powerful. It brought the Both stanzas earth to life but can't help now. begin with Think how it wakes the seeds a command. Making the Woke once the clays of a cold star. Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides reader...?

Questions the Was it for this the clay grew tall? reasons for - O what made fatuous sunbeams toil giving life in Why does the poet To break earths sleep at all? war- suggests end the poem with it's pointless. a question mark?

Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?

WILFRED OWEN
What is the point of life being created if it can destroyed so easily?

Framed

Exploring the text:

Presentation of nature * Find all the references to nature. * How is nature presented? Why?

Use of sounds * Track the sounds of words in this poem? * What do you notice? How is Owen using the sounds of words?

Direct address * What examples of direct address are there? * What do they help to achieve within the poem?

Skill: Exploring the Text

Endings:

Was it for this the clay grew tall? - O what made fatuous sunbeans toil To break earth's sleep at all?

Reflection...
* How does the poet make use of personification ? * What signals a dramatic shift? * Who do you think Owen is addressing? Explain your ideas.

Skill: Symbolism

Look at the images below:

Can you find the quotation/idea that they refer to?

Question Time!
1. Is the soldier dead or dying? What clues are there in the poem? 2. How is the mood of the poem established at the beginning? 3. How does the title of the poem relate to the content? 4. How does Owen present his ideas about a) consequences of war b) comradeship 5. Why does the poet use direct language in the poem? 6. What do you notice about the form of the poem? 7. What can you tell about the poet's attitude towards war? Do you agree with it? Discuss.

Quick Questions

A Soldier's Declaration
I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects witch actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. I have seen and endured the suffering of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerity's for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise. S. Sassoon (Open Letter, published in The Times newspaper, 31 July 1917)
Additional

Exposure I Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us... Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent... Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient... Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, But nothing happens. Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire. Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles. Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles, Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war. What are we doing here? The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow... We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy. Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray, But nothing happens. Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence. Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow, With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew, We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance, But nothing happens. II Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snowdazed, Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed, Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses. Is it that we are dying? Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there; For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs; Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed We turn back to our dying. Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn; Now ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit. For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid; Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born, For love of God seems dying. To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us, Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp. The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp, Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice, But nothing happens. Wilfred Owen
Additional

Dulce et Decorum Est. Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.-Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. 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 wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin, If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs Bitter as the cud Of 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.

Additional

Links:
Analysis of the poem: http://www.wilfredowen.org.uk/poetry/futility http://www.brighthub.com/arts/books/articles/68094.as px Wilfred Owen area on BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poets/wilfred_owen. shtml Article on how Owen's poems have been edited: http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/owen_edit ors.htm Clip about Owen's shell shock: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/understandingshellshock/8059.html Article by Jeremy Paxman on Wilfred Owen: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3669019/Wilf red-Owen-The-soldiers-poet.html BBC Documentary - Remembering Wilfred Owen (Presented by Jeremy Paxman): Part 1 http://www.videosurf.com/evideo/2_s8k_dSADkzI Part 2 http://www.videosurf.com/video/remembering-wilfredowen-2-4-1240074445 Part 3 http://www.videosurf.com/evideo/2_-HbqdE9hBAE Part 4 http://www.videosurf.com/video/remembering-wilfredowen-4-4-1240074441 (on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/MuggedByReality#grid/use r/9FAC28D0F6622AE5)

Links and References