As Jean Moorcroft Wilson points out in her recent powerful biography of Edward Thomas<\/p>\n
Though Thomas would choose not to include such grim details in his own poetry, he was ahead of many of his contemporaries in facing the reality of war.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Wilson is referring here to Thomas\u2019s last commissioned book of prose, a biographical history of The Life of the Duke of Marlborough<\/em> published by Chapman & Hall in 1915, the year in which Thomas joined up. The timely nature of a book on the great early eighteenth-century military leader, the victor of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde (1708) and Malplaquet (1709), was not lost on the publishing firm who announced on the book\u2019s jacket \u2018The achievements of the first Duke of Marlborough acquire particular interest at the present time\u2019. The book is also a rare record of Thomas\u2019s feelings about the First World War as its writing and publication took place in the year in which the Lusitania was sunk and Zeppelin raids were commenced over London.<\/p>\n
When the French were besieging the allies with Charles III in Barcelona in 1706, the English soldiers threw the enemy\u2019s grenades back to them. They fought in armour by lantern and candle in galleries thirty or forty feet underground at Tournay; they mined and countermined, and blew men into the air or were blown up, by hundreds at a time; they were suffocated by smoke, buried alive by falling earth, drowned by inundations; meeting unexpectedly sometimes these moles fought by mistake with friends. What with cannon, bombs, grenades, small shot, boiling pitch, tar, oil, brimstone and scalding water, the English Grenadiers had scarce six sound men in the company after the siege of Lille.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It might be worth comparing this passage with Wilfred Owen\u2019s late poem \u2018Strange Meeting\u2019 to give some context to what might appear, at a first glance at the poem, to be a supernatural and symbolic \u2018meeting\u2019.<\/p>\n
In the second chapter of his book, given the heading \u2018The Handsome Englishman\u2019, Thomas also pointed to the enormous gap between what people at home think of a war abroad and the grim reality of what actually goes on. Referring to an earlier history of the great British general, Life and Glorious History of Marlborough, Thomas wrote \u2018Then, as now, the soldier on active service and the soldier at home appeared to be two men, not one.\u2019 He went on to refer to the reactions of the people at home:<\/p>\n
Such people hear of fights, sieges and many deaths. But they see nothing; the talk leaves a slight and transient impression.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Looking back to the earlier biography he then added \u2018They ought\u2026to see the dead horses in the intolerable marshes of a rainy season; they should smell the \u201cstinks of mortality\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n
As Jean Moorcroft Wilson points out<\/p>\n
Few or none of the poems Thomas had read for his article on \u2018War Poetry\u2019 had included such realistic details; even by mid-1915 its focus was largely on the uplifting nature of war and the honour of fighting for England. Though Thomas would choose not to include such grim details in his own poetry, he was ahead of many of his contemporaries in facing the reality of war.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Although his poetry does not deal with the immediacy of trenches and nightmare Thomas revealed time and again how his awareness of history shaped his understanding of the human involvement in the conflict. Only a few days after being passed as fit for enlistment he wrote \u2018Digging\u2019 on 21st July 1915:<\/p>\n
What matter makes my spade for tears or mirth,
\nLetting down two clay pipes into the earth?
\nThe one I smoked, the other a soldier
\nOf Blenheim, Ramillies, and Malplaquet
\nPerhaps. The dead man\u2019s immortality
\nLies represented lightly with my own,
\nA yard or two nearer the living air
\nThan bones of ancients who, amazed to see
\nAlmighty God erect the mastodon,
\nOnce laughed, or wept, in this same light of day.<\/p>\nIan Brinton 17th August 2015<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Jean Moorcroft Wilson points out in her recent powerful biography of Edward Thomas Though Thomas would choose not to include such grim details in his own poetry, he was ahead of many of his contemporaries in facing the reality of war. Wilson is referring here to Thomas\u2019s last commissioned book of prose, a biographical Continue Reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"parent":817,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n