CHANGE IN POETICS OF BRITISH “TRENCH POETRY” (WITH REFERENCE TO FLORAL IMAGERY IN POEMS BY R. BROOKE, E. THOMAS, W. OWEN, I. ROSENBERG, I. GURNEY)

Abstract

The author of the article examines floral imagery in the poems by British “trench poets” R. Brooke, E. Thomas, W. Owen, I. Rosenberg, and I. Gurney. Having enlisted to fight on the Western Front, these poets witnessed the difference of the Great War from the conflicts of the previous epochs, and expressed this change in their works. While their early verse is either heroic or pastoral, in later poems the romanticizing of war experience gives way to disappointment. The use of floral imagery in wartime poetry unveils the contrast between the early and late war poetics. Floral imagery traditionally bears some cultural connotations: for many “trench poets” of 1914-1915, steeped in the Romantic traditions, flowers and gardens symbolized Englishness and their native soil where soldiers hope to return. In later years, however, floral imagery is reinterpreted, and the trenches of World War I are shown as completely opposed to the pastoral mode of the previous poetics.