Notebook Assignment #5 WWI Propaganda & Poetry

Transcription

1 Notebook Assignment #5 WWI Propaganda & Poetry Governments on all sides in the war design propaganda campaigns to influence actions and opinions. How? Participants and civilians on all sides in the war express their reactions to the horrors of war in poetry. Why? Look over the following WWI era propaganda posters from various nations Read the WWI era poems written by authors from that nation on same slide Answer Notebook Assignment #5 Reflection Questions on handout

2 Before Action W.N. Hodgson (England, 1916) By all the glories of the day And the cool evening's blessing, By that last sunset touch that lay Upon the hills where day was done, By beauty lavishly outpoured And blessings carelessly received, By all the days that I have lived Make me a solider, Lord. By all of man's hopes and fears, And all the wonders poets sing, The laughter of unclouded years, And every sad and lovely thing; By the romantic ages stored With high endeavor that was his, By all his mad catastrophes Make me a man, O Lord. I, that on my familiar hill Saw with uncomprehending eyes A hundred of Thy sunsets spill Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice, Ere the sun swings his noonday sword Must say goodbye to all of this;-- By all delights that I shall miss, Help me to die, O Lord.

3 Translation: War loans help the guardians of your happiness. Autumn Ernst Stadler (Germany, 1915) At evening the autumn woodlands ring With deadly weapons. Over the golden plains And lakes of blue, the sun More darkly rolls. The night surrounds Warriors dying and the wild lament Of their fragmented mouths. Yet silently there gather in the willow grove Red clouds inhabited by an angry god, Shed blood, and the chill of the moon. All roads lead to black decay. Under golden branching of the night and stars A sister's shadow sways through the still woods To greet the heroes' spirits, the bloodied heads. And softly in the reeds Autumn s dark flutes resound. O prouder misery! - You brazen altars, The spirit s hot flame is fed now by a tremendous pain: The grandsons, unborn.

4 Dulce et Decorum Est Latin for how sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country Wilfred Owen (England, 1918) 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, Obscene as cancer, 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. Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our 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 tired, outstripped those that dropped 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 floundering like a man in fire... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under I green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

5 Back Wilfred Gibson (USA, 1918) They ask me where I've been, And what I've done and seen. But what can I reply Who know it wasn't I, But someone just like me, Who went across the sea And with my head and hands Killed men in foreign lands... Though I must bear the blame, Because he bore my name.

6 Translation: Sign on for the 7 th War Loan On the Eastern Front Georg Trakl (Austria, 1914) The winter storm s mad organ playing is like our peoples dark fury, the black-red tidal wave of onslaught, defoliated stars. Her features smashed, her arms silver, Night calls to the dying men, Beneath shadows of November s ash, ghost causalities heave. A spiky no-man s-land encloses the town. The moon hunts petrified women from their blood-spattered doorsteps. Grey wolves have forced the gates.

7 Translation: Subscribe to the war loan For liberty and our victory The Cavalier s Farewell Guillaume Apollinaire (France, 1916) Oh God! What a lovely war With its hymns its long leisure hours I have polished and polished this ring The wind with your sighs is mingling Farewell! The trumpet call is sounding He disappeared down the winding road And died far off while she Laughed at fate s surprises.

8 Grotesque Frederick Manning (Australia, 1917) These are the damned circles Dante trod, Terrible in hopelessness, But even skulls have their humour, An eyeless and sardonic mockery: And we, Sitting with streaming eyes in the acrid smoke, That murks our foul, damp lodging, Chant bitterly, with raucous voices As a choir of frogs In hideous irony, our patriotic songs.

9 Russian Propaganda