Poetry of the First World War

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The approach of this seminar will be thematic. We engage with a wide variety of material by both poets who have only one poem of substance, to others whose body of work from this very short time period is remarkable. We begin with some of the poetry that helped create the climate for war. We also look at the (now all but forgotten) poetry that was written and read during the war by both combatants and non-combatants, both male and female. Male soldier poets examined include, amongst others, Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, Ivor Gurney, Edward Thomas, Issac Rosenberg, and Wilfred Owen. Female writers to be studied include, amongst others, Jessie Pope, Vera Brittain and May Wedderburn Cannan.