Trench Wars and Emotional Articulations: A Poetic Study

Abstract

Mass media and poetry had a great influence on the s oldiers and people during World Wars. Poetry, in particular, was employed consciously an unconsciously, for various purposes including governmental propaganda to recruit young men through the expression of a romantic sacrifice of one’s' own self for his own country through images of romantic heroism and patriotism. On the other hand, it was used by the poets young and old to express fear, satire, protest and resistance. This study argues that the hypothesis presented by Isma'eel & Abdulmajeed, that Romance is found in war poetry a shrinking and expansion phases depending on the meaning expressed with a conclusion of high frequency of the two meaning 'idealization' and 'heroism' in selected poems of the First World War. The study challenges this conclusion by examining I. M. Parsons theory of the different phases of emotional articulations other than romance as the truthful feeling expressed by the poets by considering the element of time through which these poems where written whether before during or after the war.