Assignment on British Poets of the First World War

Read, slowly and carefully, the following poems:

• “All the Hills and Vales Along” by Charles Hamilton Sorley;
• “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen;
• “Anthem For Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen;
• “Enemies” and “Strange Meeting” by Wilfred Owen (two poems);
• “A Soldier's Declaration” by Siegfried Sassoon (not a poem).

Print them out so you can mark them up. Mark them up after you read them once or twice.

Pick any one of these poems. Write 300 - 350 words about it. You may summarize it if you like, but no more than 75 words can be spent on the summary.

Discuss the poem you have chosen. Discuss its form - rhyme, meter, use of images.

Discuss how the poem's form complements the poem's meaning.

Compare the poem you have chosen with the famous and conventionally patriotic poem "In Flanders Field" by Canadian soldier John McCrea.

Email to me and to your group.