Soldier poets are the true historians of the war. Unlike the host of professional versifiers who sat up day and night on Parnassus, pouring out their patriotic zeal in allegorical rhymes of battles and batteries with more than Aesopian facility, the soldier poets have given to life and literature a genuine interpretation of warfare stripped bare of artificialty
A few years after the Great War reached it’s bloody conclusion, literary critic Helen McAfee discovered that a careful reading of the prominent authors and poets writing between 1918 and 1923 revealed that each of them shared a newfound sense of malaise – a despairing, pessimistic voice that was not found in their pre-war predecessors.
Certainly the most striking dramatization of this depth of confusion and bitterness is Mr. Eliot’s The Waste Land. As if by flashes of lightening it reveals the wreck of the storm… The poem is written in the Expressionist manner – a manner peculiarly adapted to the present temper… It is mood more than idea that gives the poem its unity. And the mood is black. It is bitter as gall; not only with a personal bitterness, but also with the bitterness of a man facing a world devastated by a war for a peace without ideals.
If you would like to read another 1920s article about the disillusioned post-war spirit, click here.
Father Francis P. Duffy (1874 – 1932) was the well-loved regimental chaplain for the illustrious, old New York infantry regiment known as the Fighting 69th.
Next time you find yourself walking near Times Square in New York City, you’ll see a statue erected in his memory situated behind a statue of the popular songster who composed Over There – George M. Cohan (1878 – 1942). These memorials will be found at Broadway and 7th Avenue (between 46th & 47th streets). Both men knew the neighborhood well – to Cohan it was known as the Theater District while Duffy knew it as Hell’s Kitchen, and it was his parish.
The Bookman reviewed Duffy’s memoir
You can can read more about Father Duffy’s war here…
Click here to read articles about W.W. I poetry.
Attached is an account by a learned traveler who journeyed to that one piece of ground on the isle of Skyros that will forever be England – the grave of the English poet Rupert Brooke (1887 – 1915). The literati who wrote the attached article went to great lengths imparting the significance of Skyros throughout all antiquity and it’s meaning to the world of letters – credited only as S. Casson, he informed his readers that he arrived on the island five years after the 1915 internment in order to erect the headstone that is currently in place, describing the shepherds and other assorted rustics in some detail while alluding tirelessly to the works of Homer.
Fritz Arno Wagner (1894 – 1958) is best remembered as a pioneering cinematographer from the earliest days of the German film industry, however before he could gain the experiences necessary to become the director of photography for such films as Nosferatu, and Westfront he had to first fulfill his obligations to the Kaiser. This article is an account of his brief stint in the Hussars (ie. lancers) that he gave to the editor’s of Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper. Although the article only covers his training period, it does give the reader a sense of what life was like for an enlisted man serving in one of highly prized regiments in the Imperial German Army.
It is believed that this magazine article was written during his days with Pathe News in New York.
Click here to read about the U.S. Navy railroad artillery of W.W. I.
Fritz Arno Wagner (1894 – 1958) is best remembered as a pioneering cinematographer from the earliest days of the German film industry, however before he could gain the experiences necessary to become the director of photography for such films as Nosferatu, and Westfront he had to first fulfill his obligations to the Kaiser. This article is an account of his brief stint in the Hussars (ie. lancers) that he gave to the editor’s of Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper. Although the article only covers his training period, it does give the reader a sense of what life was like for an enlisted man serving in one of highly prized regiments in the Imperial German Army.
It is believed that this magazine article was written during his days with Pathe News in New York.
Click here to read about the U.S. Navy railroad artillery of W.W. I.
Reviewed herein is the W.W. memoir of General von Josef Graf Sturgkh (1859 – 1916) memoir recalling his days in Berlin serving as the Austrian Army delegate to the German military’s Great Headquarters (1915 – 1916):
Graf Sturgkh drops several hints about the very heavy losses incurred by the Germans in the very first weeks of the war…
Under the French Flag is a W.W. I memoir by M. Macdonald in which the author tells the story of an Englishman who chose to sign up for the French Army due to their lax recruiting regulations which provided for the enlistment of men as old as fifty years of age. The reviewer believed the author recounted some interesting scenes of early-war France and French barracks life.
Click here to read articles about W.W. I poetry.
When you stop to think of patriotic poetry, Gertrude Stein
