From Patriotism to Disillusionment: Mapping shifting tone in British War Poetry

Abstract

First World War, also known as Great War, had an emphatic impact in shaping the literary genre called War Poetry that sketched veracious picture of the modern technological warfare to the world. The war poems written by the soldiers themselves during the Great War were not a piece of writing but this was a medium through which they expurgated their feelings and emotions. Their emotions became a message to convey the truth to the ordinary people or the civilians back at home. This dissertation aims to mainly shed light on the British soldier poets whose war poems are less studied or addressed outside of England like- Rupert Brooke (1887- 1915), Ivor Gurney (1890-1937), Robert Graves (1895-1985) and Rudyard Kipling (1865- 1936). Walking through the lives of these poets, this paper targets to analyze the selected works that are highly influenced by their personal experiences in the war. This further demonstrates and maps the gradational change in the tone of their verses starting from the outbreak of the war to the end of World War I.