Meeting the Enemy in World War I Poetry: Cognitive Dissonance as a Vehicle for Theme

David Poynor

doi:10.3390/h8010030

Abstract

Some World War I poems show an enemy soldier up close. This choice usually proves very effective for expressing the general irony of war, to be sure. However, I submit that showing interaction with the enemy also allows the speaker space to wrestle with internal conflict, guilt, or cognitive dissonance, and that it allows—or even forces—readers to participate in that struggle along with the speaker. While the poets’ writings no doubt had therapeutic effects for the poets themselves, I focus more on the literary effects, specifically arguing that the poems are powerful to us readers since they heighten the personal exposure of the poets’ psyches and since they make us share the dissonance as readers. I consider poems by Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, Ford Madox Ford, Herbert Read, and Robert Service.

Highlights

Some World War I poems show an enemy soldier up close
Overall the role of the enemy in World War I poetry—especially by the poets who directly participated in combat—seems to be that of co-victim of a grander evil that afflicts both sides
I submit that this approach allows the speaker space to wrestle with internal conflict, guilt, or cognitive dissonance

Summary

Scope and Method

There are not very many poems in the entire canon that show a direct face-to-face encounter with an enemy soldier. A third category is of poems that deal with or mention death or the dead in a less specific or more abstract way, not directly describing the event; in this category I put 38 or 40 poems. Beyond Sassoon and Owen, I count only four that mention encountering the enemy, and which I will discuss in this paper: “Only a Boche” by Robert Service, “That Exploit of Yours” by Ford. Madox Ford, “A Dead Boche” by Robert Graves, and “The Happy Warrior” by Herbert Read Even among those poems that seem to mention an enemy, there are different levels of intimacy and interaction. Let us consider those few poems—four by Siegfried Sassoon, three by Wilfred Owen, one each by Robert Graves, Robert Service, Ford Madox Ford, and Herbert Read—in which the enemy soldier is an actor or foregrounded presence

Poems Depicting Intimate Interaction or Conversation with the Enemy

Poems Depicting only the Seeing or Touching of an Enemy

Poems Depicting a Dead Soldier Whose Identity as an Enemy is Uncertain

Discussion and Conclusions