This page intentionally left blank SURVIVORS’ SONGS From Homer to Heaney, the voices of men and women have seldombeenmorepiercing,morepoignant,thanintimeofconflict. Forfiftyyears,JonStallworthyhasbeenattunedtosuchvoices.In Survivors’Songsheexploresaseriesofpoeticencounterswithwar, with essays on Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and others. Beautifully written, this moving book sets the poetry and prose of the First World War and its aftermath in the wider context ofwriting about warfarefrom prehistoricTroy toAnglo- Saxon England; from Agincourt to Flanders; from El Alamein to Vietnam;fromthewarsofyesterdaytothewarsoftomorrow. jon stallworthy is a poet and a Fellow of the British Academy. Formerly Professor of English Literature at Wolfson College, Oxford, he is the author of prize-winning biographies of Wilfred Owen and Louis MacNeice, the editor of Owen’s Complete Poems and Fragments and of The Oxford Book of War Poetry.Hehaspublishedmanyvolumesofpoems,worksofliterary criticism,anthologiesofpoetry,andamemoir,SingingSchool:The MakingofaPoet. SURVIVORS’ SONGS from Maldon to the Somme JON STALLWORTHY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521899062 ©Jon Stallworthy 2008 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2008 ISBN-13 978-0-511-45581-0 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 978-0-521-89906-2 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-72789-1 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. WITH A POPPY for Macnair Jon Stallworthy 11 11 01 . . – Whatwasitfor, thatWartoEndWars? Itwasforus. Itwasforyouandyours. Contents Voice over page ix Acknowledgements xi 1. Thedeathofthehero 1 2. Survivors’songs 18 3. England’sepic? 35 4. WhowasRupertBrooke? 42 5. Christandthesoldier 55 6. Owen’safterlife 68 7. Owenandhiseditors 81 8. ThelegacyoftheSomme 98 9. TheiconographyoftheWasteLand 109 10. Warandpeace 128 11. Thefirefromheaven 146 12. HenryReedandtheGreatGoodPlace 162 13. Thefuryandthemire 178 Notes 196 Index 213 vii