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Apologia Pro Poemate Meo

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"Apologia Pro Poemate Meo" is a poem by Wilfred Owen. It deals with the atrocities of World War I. The title means "in defence of my poetry" and is often viewed as a rebuttal to a remark in Robert Graves' letter "for God's sake cheer up and write more optimistically - the war's not ended yet but a poet should have a spirit above wars."

Alternatively, the poem is seen as a possible response to "Apologia Pro Vita Sua".

The poem describes some of the horrors of war and how this leads to a lack of emotion and a desensitisation to death. However the key message of the poem is revealed in the final two stanzas criticizing "you" at home (contemporary readers) for using war propaganda and images as a form of entertainment "These men are worth/ Your tears. You are not worth their merriment".

The full poem is as follows:

I, too, saw God through mud -

The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.


Merry it was to laugh there -

Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.For power was on us as we slashed bones bareNot to feel sickness or remorse of murder.


I, too, have dropped off fear -

Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,And sailed my spirit surging, light and clearPast the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;


And witnessed exultation -

Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.


I have made fellowships -

Untold of happy lovers in old song.For love is not the binding of fair lipsWith the soft silk of eyes that look and long,


By Joy, whose ribbon slips, -

But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong;Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;Knit in the webbing of the rifle-thong.


I have perceived much beauty

In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;Heard music in the silentness of duty;Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.


Nevertheless, except you share

With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,Whose world is but the trembling of a flare,And heaven but as the highway for a shell,


You shall not hear their mirth:

You shall not come to think them well contentBy any jest of mine. These men are worthYour tears: You are not worth their merriment.

References

Apologia Pro Poemate Meo Wikipedia


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