Disillusionment and Silence in British Trench Poems: Voices from World War I

Year 2023, Volume: 27 Issue: 3, 264 - 269, 15.09.2023

Şafak Horzum

https://doi.org/10.5152/JSSI.2022.22274

Abstract

British trench poets who had first-hand experiences in World War I (1914–1918) produced significant poetic works in terms of depicting the realities of battlefields throughout the clashes.
Unlike the promises of heroism, valor, and adventure in the discourses of patriotism and manliness, the actual conditions of the Great War became the source of disillusionment with humanity,
its potential for advancement, and the meaning of life. Therefore, this article aims to analyze the
common notions in most of these soldier-poets’ works and explicate these trench poets’ challenges to the pro-war discourses by means of their shared sense of disillusionment and the manner of silence in the face of the atrocities of the battle conditions

Keywords

British trench poetry, disillusionment, World War I

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