A Critical and Contextual Analysis of Wartime and Religious Poetry and How They Are Used as Propaganda

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All across Europe, nations and mothers were happily delivering their children to war, unaware that few would ever return. And behind the censorship and the propaganda were politicians pushing the message of sacredness and righteousness to join the fight for God, and for country. Wilfred Owen set out to destroy this hypocrisy, to vent his fury at the false glorification of war and of the eyes wide shut politicians that engineered a global massacre; where motivation lay in self-interest. He set out to restore true faith under which; there could never be rationale for such brutal violence. This is evidenced in a letter Owen wrote to home in 1917 “Christ is literally in no man’s land. There men often hear his voice. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life—for a friend. Is it spoken in English only and in French? I do not believe so, thus you see how pure Christianity cannot fit in with pure patriotism” (Simcox, K, 2001). Owen’s meaning was that if Christ spoke to all nationalities and violence continued, then surely one side must be acting fallaciously; the brutality could not possibly derive from a plan of God. In Owen’s poem, ‘Anthem, for Doomed Youth’ (See Appendix D), he refers to Christian ritual symbolism to shock the reader into accepting the brutality of war. The Passing bell, was a bell rung by the church when somebody died in a community. Its purpose was to alert the community of the death and to aid the spirit’s passage forward to God. In the opening line, Owen compares the battlefield to a slaughterhouse and de-personifies a human to that of inhumanely treated cattle ‘What passing bells for these who die as cattle?’. With this, he illustrates a denial of heavenly rights for those that have suffered at the hands of a false god. The church at this time was heavily institutionalised by the British government and Owen believed; had become distanced from its true duty. Owen portrays this in the third and fourth line ‘Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle can patter out their hasty orisons’. Orisons is a Latin word meaning prayer and shows Owen’s intention to implicate the church in their ‘hasty’, un-Godly and political decision to support the war. Owen personifies the rifles and in fact all weaponry; ‘wailing’ and ‘stuttering’, resulting in a juxtaposition of what is human and what is not. Owen’s particular language comparing weaponry to a ‘demented’ church choir, attacks the reader’s senses leaving them hearing a violent and haunting sound; comparable with screaming angels enduring torment. Ironically, the ‘haste’ with which you can be killed by these personified weapons; is the most humane way to die on the battle-field. Owen uses anaphora of the word ‘only’ in line two and three to build momentum and pace (SchmoopEditors, 2016), not only to highlight the action on the battle-field but to accentuate the haste in which decisions were made by the church to glorify the deaths of soldiers; something commonly seen in the Taliban’s manifestation of Islam today. Owen reinforces the church’s manipulation of death in line five ‘No mockeries now for them; no prayers or bells’, in which he refers to these sacred rituals as a sham. Owen’s poem ‘Insensibility’ highlights the horrors and senselessness of war. Owen begins by announcing that a soldier has more chance of survival should they de-sensitise themselves from their brothers in arms and from themselves; as one’s mind cannot rationalise so much death. ‘Happy are men who yet before they are killed, can let their veins run cold, whom no compassion fleers or makes their feet sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers’. Owen uses this disturbing imagery and metaphor to represent the sheer number of deaths that is witnessed, that a man may be nonchalant in trampling upon the skull of a friend. It is blunt and represents the lack of compassion that is required, for these soldiers to keep a straight head and survive. In stanza three, Owen writes ‘Happy are these who lose imagination: they have enough to carry with ammunition’. Again, reinforcing the idea that if they lose a part of themselves, that burden lifted; will lessen their struggle. In stanza six, unlike the previous stanzas and contrary to popular belief; the ‘dullards’, those that ‘should be as stones’ are not the soldiers he is fighting alongside. Throughout the poem, Owen talks of the necessity to keep a part of yourself sacred, but this stanza is in reference to political discontent and anger towards the purposelessness of war. It is a denunciation to those that lead, but that do not fight; for they had by choice ‘made themselves immune’. The statement ‘they should be as stones’ is in reference to the ‘cobbled’ metaphor in stanza one; implying that the powers that be themselves; should be trampled on for their sins. It is a stanza that speaks in the defence of his brothers and in anger at powerful institutions that deceitfully lined the path for war. These frustrations are also frequently portrayed in modern middle eastern taranas. Owen’s poetry was not written as propaganda, Owen saw his purpose as a poet to re-create his feelings and experiences of war through poetry. He originally titled his poem ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ as ‘To Jessie Pope’. This poem was a graphic display of the horrors of warfare, ultimately aligning responsibility of the death of soldiers in their thousands, to those that chose to write for the cause of government propaganda, rather than that of truth. From his poem, ‘Strange meeting’, it is clear his intention as a writer is to tell ‘the truth untold, the pity of war, the pity of war distilled.’

Afghan poetry is sung during times of extremes for example; very late at night or very early in the morning, at weddings, upon death and most frequently, during time of suffering. Contextually, this manner of recitation comes from that of prayer in the Qur’an. The sound and presentation of the poems are an important reflection of the sentiment of which they are intended to be consumed. Similar to that of the structure and form of a traditional western poem, the use of enjambment, punctuation and rhythm that can be assessed through text; can be assessed through vocal performance patterns in middle eastern poems. When the poems are sung, they are sung by a male, never a female. This is to enhance the message of the poem so that it is taken seriously. The vocal performance will be executed in as high of a pitch as possible, not low. This adds intensity to the feeling of the poem which will be sung at a medium (madhya) or fast (drut) pace (laya) (Strick van Linschoten et al, 2012), similar to that of Begbie’s ‘Fall in’. When recorded, the reverb or ‘large hall’ effects are so; that they are instantly recognisable. Tarana, the translation being