Lesson Plan

Poetry of The Great War: From Darkness to Light

John Singer Sargent's, Gassed (1919)
Photo caption

John Singer Sargent's, Gassed (1919)

Wikimedia Commons

The historian and literary critic Paul Fussell has noted in The Great War and Modern Memory that, "Dawn has never recovered from what the Great War did to it." With dawn as a common symbol in poetry, it is no wonder that, like a new understanding of dawn itself, a comprehensive body of "World War I Poetry" emerged from the trenches as well. This lesson brings history and poetry together to examine the experiences of those who fought and the psychological, emotional, and physical consequences of war beyond the battlefields. 

Guiding Questions

How are poetic devices used to present and interpret WWI?

What is the relationship between a poem's form and its content?

What unique qualities do poems possess for expressing emotions and perspectives?

Learning Objectives

Explore the historical context of "World War I poetry.

Define and understand in context common poetic devices.

Compare and contrast poems via active class discussion.

Create a well-supported analysis of the relationship between a poem's form and its content.

Lesson Plan Details

Background

The historian and literary critic Paul Fussell has noted in The Great War and Modern Memory that, "Dawn has never recovered from what the Great War did to it." He argues that World War I, with its unprecedented trench warfare and mass devastation across the European landscape, left a dark cloud hanging over the world. Despite the patriotism, optimism, and idealism held by the young men who eagerly fought for their respective country, World War I was fraught with widespread destruction and loss.

The very symbol of dawn, which traditionally would bring with it the hope and freshness of a new day, was reconfigured in a war like no other in history. Instead of the symbolic hope and freshness of a new day, the WWI dawn often brought with it the profound reality of a landscape flecked with causalities and devastation as young soldiers peered from the dark depths of their trenches. With dawn as a common symbol in poetry, it is no wonder that, like a new understanding of dawn itself, a comprehensive body of "World War I Poetry" emerged from the trenches as well.

Perhaps the most widely read and anthologized WWI poet, Wilfred Owen fought and ultimately died in WWI. His famous poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" presents a raw portrait of the life soldiers often experienced during the War. Edgar Guest, who was born in England and raised in the U.S., was in his early thirties when WWI began. Though he wrote about The Great War, he never fought in it. He worked at the Detroit Free Press newspaper as a verse columnist and has been called "the people's poet."

Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" and Guest's famous poem "The Things That Make a Soldier Great" enable close analysis of common poetic devices (e.g., meter, rhyme, tone, symbol, image, consonance, etc.) and of each poem's marriage of form and content. Different interpretations of WWI itself emerge from these poems, which ultimately offer a far-reaching literary supplement to our collective history and understanding of The Great War.

Content Standards

NCSS.D2.His.1.9-12. Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts.

NCSS.D2.His.2.9-12. Analyze change and continuity in historical eras.

NCSS.D2.His.3.9-12. Use questions generated about individuals and groups to assess how the significance of their actions changes over time and is shaped by the historical context.

NCSS.D2.His.12.9-12. Use questions generated about multiple historical sources to pursue further inquiry and investigate additional sources.

NCSS.D2.His.14.9-12. Analyze multiple and complex causes and effects of events in the past.

NCSS.D2.His.15.9-12. Distinguish between long-term causes and triggering events in developing a historical argument.

NCSS.D2.His.16.9-12. Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

Preparation

The following EDSITEment lesson plans provide an introduction for World War I:

Lesson Activities

Activity 1. Poetic Analysis Warm-up Exercises

Symbolism and Imagery: "Through Darkness to Light"

Many poetic devices, such as symbolism and imagery, can be used and understood outside the context of poetry. Ask students to provide a general definition for symbolism and imagery. The Purdue Online Writing Lab, available through the EDSITEment-reviewed Internet Public Library, provides a useful glossary detailing these literary terms. While imagery helps set the tone and mood in a work, symbols tend to create a more pointed, one-to-one relationship between a symbol and the feeling or object to which it refers. In a western film, for example, the imagery of tumbleweed sets a tone of desolation and tension, while the hero's white hat and the villain's black hat are symbols of good and evil. Point out to students that symbolism in WWI posters can help us understand the general mood of the U.S. and Great Britain during the era of "The Great War"—before, during, and after the War. Show, for example, the "A Wonderful Opportunity for You" American solider recruitment poster housed at the National Archives and the "Only Road for an Englishman: Through Darkness to Light" poster from the Library of Congress' American Memory Project. Using the National Archives Poster Analysis Worksheet as a guide, discuss the posters' textual and visual rhetoric with your class at large. Then focus on the symbolism of light and darkness as students discuss the posters in more detail.

  • Symbolism and Imagery: Working with the posters and analysis worksheet, ask students to point out and discuss the symbols and imagery they identify in each poster. Additional considerations:
    • For the first poster, focus on the circular image behind the solider. Point out how that image evokes the sun (via its color, the circle, etc.). Discuss the sun's symbolism within the context of this poster. Then ask students to describe the soldier's mood by pointing to additional aspects of the poster that lead to their conclusions (e.g., the soldier's smile, his hurried pace, etc.).
    • For the second poster, ask students to describe the textual and visual references to darkness and light, and discuss how darkness and light are used symbolically in this poster.

In the Trenches

Mention to students that trench warfare was a defining aspect of WWI. Ask students to keep in mind the symbolism of darkness and light as they are learning more about WWI in and from the trenches.

  • Show students the following trench photos from the EDSITEment resource Photos of the Great War and videos from The Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed Academy of American Poets site, and ask them first to imagine and then discuss what life in the trenches must have been like (e.g., darkness, underground, cramped quarters, rats, sounds, etc.). You might consider putting students into groups for this exercise, asking each to examine a single photograph or film before returning to a larger discussion about the war.
  • Have student volunteers read the following first-hand retrospective accounts of life in the trenches from the EDSITEment-reviewed WWI Primary Documents Archive, and then lead a class discussion to sum up the symbolism of darkness vs. light. Ask students whether certain symbols can change over time. To give this question some context, you can discuss the image of "dawn" in the second account of the trenches. The following questions can help generate discussion:
    • How does the soldier describe "yesterday's dawn" at the end of this excerpt?
    • How does his description of dawn change by the next day? Revisit the "A Wonderful Opportunity for You" poster, and compare MacGill's description of dawn to the symbol of the sun in the poster. A larger question is "In what ways did WWI change the symbolism of sun/light/dawn?"
    • From WWI Primary Documents Archive:
      • By Philip Curme: By January the Battalion had moved to the front line—arriving at night. "The darkness was continually illuminated, for a thousand very lights hung from the black velvet sky. Rifle shots and the traversing fire of machine-guns startled the air; monstrous rats came to life from behind the sandbags, scampering boldly ... through the mud. A door opened or a sackcloth curtain swung aside, revealing a candlelit dugout ... Gradually imperceptibly, the black & white pictures of the night were coloured by the sun. A dark phantasmal mass became a hooded farm wagon, derelict. For a space the war slept. By day there was stillness, broken now and then by a sniper firing suddenly ... or by a bombardment scattering men & things. Day was appallingly prosaic but night was beautiful & romantic. When the lights shot up into the sky the trenches became like fairyland." "Though only a thousand yards away from the German trenches, this spot seemed far away from the war. The undergrowth round the chateau was a riot of wild & garden flowers. Dogs barked at the guns, the vagrant cuckoo called to its mate and nightingales sang through the hours of darkness."
      • By Patrick MacGill: A RIM of grey clouds clustered thick on the horizon as if hiding some wonderful secret from the eyes of men. Above my head the stars were twinkling, a soft breeze swung over the open, and moist gusts caught me in the face as I picked my way carefully through the still figures in brown and grey that lay all over the stony face of the level lands. A spinney on the right was wrapped in shadow, and when, for a moment, I stood to listen, vague whispers and secret rustlings could be heard all around. The hour before the dawn was full of wonder, the world in which I moved was pregnant with mystery. "Who are these?" I asked myself as I looked at the still figures in khaki. "Where is the life, the vitality of yesterday's dawn; the fire of eager eyes, the mad pulsing of roving blood, and the great heart of young adventure? Has the roving, the vitality and the fire come to this; gone out like sparks from a star-shell falling in a pond? What are these things here? What am I? What is the purpose served by all this demolition and waste?" Like a child in the dark I put myself the question, but there was no answer. The stars wheel on their courses over the dance of death and the feast of joy, ever the same.
    • Read out loud Isaac Rosenberg's poem "Break of Day in the Trenches" (1916), available through the EDSITEment-reviewed resource Academy of American Poets. Define the terms metaphor and simile, and ask students what comparison Rosenberg makes to describe the trenches. Ask students to make comparisons between life in the trenches and more familiar settings/experiences, etc. How does Rosenberg feel about life in the trenches? How is nature portrayed in this poem? In an earlier exercise, students explored the use of light and dark in recruitment posters—how does light and dark work as symbols in this poem? Students should support their answer with concrete details from the poem.

Activity 2. Close Analysis of Poetic Form and Content

Poetic Devices

  • Hand out the Poetic Devices Worksheet. Work with students to define the literary terms, and ask students to take notes in the definitions section of the worksheet. The Glossary of Poetic Terms, available via links from the EDSITEment-reviewed American Academy of Poets, has some useful, brief definitions.
  • Assign the following two poems for students to read for the next class period, and ask students to find examples of each poetic device from the assigned poems as they are reading the poems on their own time. Point out to students that they should consider as well the effects a poem's lack of certain devices has on the poem at large (e.g., the lack of meter, rhyme, etc.) Mention to students that they should be prepared to discuss the poems during the next class period.
  • Devote the second class period to close analysis of the selected WWI poems. Start by reading out loud Edgar Guest's "The Things That Make a Soldier Great" (1917). You should read the poem out loud, and then have a student volunteer read the poem again. Use the following questions to generate a class discussion:
    • Meter: You can use this poem to give a basic overview of how a poem's meter fundamentally is tied to the poem's syllable count per line. Ask students if they noticed a consistent syllabic pattern. Count the number of syllables with students, and then define meter as the number of stressed beats per line. There is no need to go into an advanced lesson on meter and scansion; instead, point out how Guest's lines have a consistent pattern of "beats." Ask students to notice how the consistent beat of Guest's poem evokes the consistent beat of marching soldiers, thereby adding to the poems patriotic call for soldiers to join the fight. For an extended lesson on meter, refer to the EDSITEment lesson "Listening to Poetry: Sounds of the Sonnet." You can note that this poem is a ballad (printed with long ballad lines of iambic heptameter), a form that is meant to sound song-like.
    • Rhyme: Use this poem to discuss rhyme. Ask students the following questions:
      • As you were listening to the poem, did you hear the rhyme scheme?
      • How would you describe this rhyming? (Song-like or "sing-songy")?
      • Where have you heard this type of rhyming? (Note that children's songs, or nursery rhymes, often are in short ballad form).
      • What emotional response does this poem's rhyme scheme elicit? How do the meter and rhyme scheme contribute to the poem's mood?
      • Write the first two lines of the poem on a whiteboard or chalkboard as follows:
        • The things that make a soldier great and send him out to die,
          To face the flaming cannon's mouth nor ever question why,
      • Now compare the poem as written above to "Mary Had a Little Lamb": Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow
        and everywhere that Mary went The lamb was sure to go
    • Tone and Images: Building on the questions above, be sure to elaborate on the poet's tone. Ask students the following questions:
      • How would you describe the poet's mood and/or the emotions the poem evokes?
      • What specific images contribute to the poet's tone (e.g., lilacs, tulips, children, flag, home, garden)? Why or how do these images affect the tone at large?
  • Note that "[The established poet] Robert Graves criticised [Poet Wilfred] Owen for not abiding by the rules of metre, and it is true that "Disabled" seems loosely organised with its apparently arbitrary irregularities of stanza, metre and rhyme. Perhaps Owen felt, not unreasonably, that a poet was entitled to break the rules as long as he knew them first" [Noted by Literary Critic Kenneth Simcox, 2001]. Keeping Owen's use of meter in mind, read out loud Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" (1917). Have students read the poem aloud. Have students note and compare the titles of these poems; "Dulce et Decorum Est" roughly translates as "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country."
  • Lead another class discussion about this poem based on the following questions:
    • Meter/Rhyme:
      • Ask students if they hear a clear meter and rhyme scheme when this poem is read aloud? [Mention how the lack of consistent beats detracts from the rhyme scheme that is actually present in the poem.] Ask students to review the first stanza of Owen's poem, and compare it to the first stanza of "The Things That Make a Soldier Great."
        • 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 Five-Nines that dropped behind.
        • The things that make a soldier great and send him out to die,
          To face the flaming cannon's mouth nor ever question why,
          Are lilacs by a little porch, the row of tulips red,
          The peonies and pansies, too, the old petunia bed,
          The grass plot where his children play, the roses on the wall:
          'Tis these that make a soldier great. He's fighting for them all.
      • Does this poem sound song-like as "The Things That Make a Soldier Great"? Why not? [Note that the heavy ballad beats are not present in this poem]. What is the mood/tone of this poem? Discuss how this lack of clearly organized beats changes the tone of the poem; it is far from "sing-songy."
    • Alliteration, Consonance, Assonance: Ask students to define alliteration (repetition of initial sounds), consonance (repetition of consonant sounds initially and/or within a word), and assonance (repetition of vowel sounds initially and/or within a word). Focus of the first four lines of Owen's poem: 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.
      • Discuss, for example, the hard "c" consonance of within the first few lines of "Dulce" (sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing, like, cursed, backs). Ask students what this consonance brings to mind (i.e., the sound of coughing itself):
      • As an example of assonance, point to the "u" sounds within the first few lines (including the ending of lines 2 and
      • Explain to students that this case of assonance, the "u" sounds slow down and therefore draw out the lines. Again form marries content as the soldiers "trudge" through "sludge."
    • Pacing: Turn to the lines "Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling," to draw attention to the changed pace of the poem. Ask students what effect the use of one syllable words has on the poem's pace.
    • Additional Analysis: Break students into small groups, and have each group discuss the last two stanzas of the poem for 10 minutes. Regroup for full class discussion of the remainder of the poem.
Assessment

Written Analysis: Comparison and Contrast Paper

  • Guest and Owen make two very different arguments about fighting in WWI in "The Things That Make a Soldier Great" and "Dulce et Decorum Est." Compare and contrast the poems in a typed, 3-page written analysis. Remind students to be sure to use concrete details from each poem to support their key claims. Ask students to focus on at least 3 poetic devices as they compare and contrast the poems at large.
  • Ask students to examine the poetic devices in other WWI poems, such as those listed in "Extending the Lesson" below.
Lesson Extensions

You can extend the lesson by studying additional WWI poems, including the following:

Selected EDSITEment Websites

Materials & Media

Poetry of the Great War: Poetic Devices Worksheet
Download File (PDF)

Related on EDSITEment

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