Monday 4 August 2014

WWI Centenery: Two Perspectives




Seeing as today is the Centenery of the First World War, I thought I'd share one of my favourite WWI poems and a letter with you, which will hopefully illustrate the realities of both men and women during this dreadful time, through the perspectives of Madeline Ida Bedford and Wilfred Owen. 


1)



This one, I believe, satirizes the so-called 'good life' in the munitions factories that women were suppose to have appreciated and enjoyed. In reality, while they weren't faced with the horrors of the trenches, and whilst in the long term their involvement proved their capabilities and potential thus contributing to the reasons behind them gaining suffrage in 1918, women's experiences, in most cases, involved hard labour, danger, grief, loss and loneliness. Those on the Home Front deserved a voice too.

2)
 Letter from poet/soldier Wilfred Owen to his mother, Susan Owen. Click to listen to audio of letter.

Owen wrote over 500 letters to his mother through the years, until he sadly died one week before the Armistice in November 1918, aged just 25. My favourite poem of his is Anthem For Doomed Youth.


 Something that a presenter of a WWI remembrance programme said earlier caught my attention - 
"Out of a war with such brutality, that killed millions, came art, literature and music of enduring elegance " 



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