"Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have sat us down to wet Right many a nipperkin! "But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place. "I shot him dead because — Because he was my foe, Just so: my foe of course he was; That's clear enough; although "He thought he'd 'list, perhaps, Off-hand like — just as I — Was out of work — had sold his traps — No other reason why. "Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You'd treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown." What's it all about? In the form of a dramatic monologue, this poem is about the perils of acting in war without truly considering the consequences of your actions. It focuses on the reasons why soldiers kill each other, and questions the nature of war. What's the point of view? The narrator of this poem is easy to see - a soldier who has returned from war with a brand-new experience - killing a fellow soldier. He is discussing the man he killed, who, incidentally, is never named. It's worth mentioning that this poem was written following the Boer Wars - which were incredibly violent, angry and resulted in a lot of deaths. Strangely, the narrator mentions none of this... Why? Think about the structure The poem is written in quatrains, with a clear ABAB rhyme scheme, and a regular rhythm of trimeters and tetrameters, with an iambic rhythm. This evokes childishness, immaturity - almost like a nursery rhyme or children's poem. This could reflect the soldier himself - how old may he have been? Remember, many soldiers went to war having lied about their age. The tone of the poem is interesting - stanza one focuses on what the man could have done, had the circumstances were different; number two explains what happened in reality. Stanza 3 sees our narrator attempting to justify his actions. Stanza 4 has him debating the similarities between himself and the soldier; the final stanza sees him almost give up trying to understand the situation, writing war off as something "quaint and curious". This could reflect the thought process of the narrator - after all, the poem is written almost like a stream of consciousness that sees him debating almost with himself. Hardy's use of punctuation is key, too. Notice his use of hyphens - along with the repetition, they create a sense of hesitation and confusion: "He thought he'd 'list, perhaps, Off-hand like — just as I — Was out of work — had sold his traps — No other reason why. The hyphens aren't needed, but they add some real tension to the poem as we see the narrator battling with his own thoughts. There are two levels of conflict here, aren't there?
And the language too Interestingly, as mentioned earlier, the Boer Wars were incredibly violent, but the narrator mentions nothing of this. Instead, the language is clearly focused on the soldier that was killed; there is actually no real mention of war. Instead, the language is simple, wistful and memory-led - the man is reflecting on the human side of war. Take this from Bitesize: The language of the poem is very simple, fitting the character of the speaker and creating a powerful anti-war message. It is written in the first person and the vocabulary suggests a local Dorset man – the word nipperkin, for example, was most widely used in the West Country. This increases the sense of the common man being the speaker, and the connection to the text for the reader. Imagine other methods This poem is all about simplicity. This is the important thing! It's not an all-singing, all-dancing anti-war poem; instead, it draws you into a relationship with the narrator, only forcing you to focus on war at the very end. Some notes on imagery and alliteration from Bitesize: In keeping with the simple form of the poem, there are no similes or metaphors. Instead the speaker imagines having met his enemy at the pub instead of on the battlefield. The image of the "ancient inn" gives the sense of a traditional British setting, and of a cosy drink, which contrasts with the reality of the shooting. The dramatic monologue form shows the speaker imagining the back story for the man he killed. The use of the hesitant "perhaps" and the effect of the multiple dashes is to create a vivid picture of the speaker thinking and imagining without having any direct description at all. The poem uses a lot of repetition and parallel sentence structures to emphasise the pairings of the speaker and the man he has killed, such as "face to face" and "I shot at him as he at me". This is particularly true in the third stanza, where the repetition of the words "foe" and "because" add to the internal rhyme of "just so" to create the impression that the speaker is trying to convince himself. Poems for comparison
You can access the presentation for the lesson here:
0 Comments
|
An OverviewWe are studying the Conflict cluster from the Edexcel anthology. This exam is closed-book, so you will need to familiarise yourself with each poem's form, structure and language, in addition to how each poem is related, before the exam. ArchivesCategories
All
|