Poets of the 8th British Army: Their Attitudes towards War Their Attitudes Towards War

This is a study of the Eighth Army war poetry. It tackles the themes on which the poets of this fighting force wrote. These themes are the pity of war, the old concepts of chivalry, the destruction of war, the exotic scenes and the landscape of exile, nostalgia, Lack of faith, the fear of death, love, comradeship in arms, and the emblematic use of nature. The attitudes of the Eighth Army poets towards war and how it affected them are revealed while handling these themes. It is argued that to the poets of the Eighth Army, as typical representatives of the soldier poetry of World War II, is attributed the crystallization of the new concept of war which had sprung earlier in 1916. The anti-heroism movement which took a distinct shape during the 1939-45 War is but one 'contribution of modern war to cultural modernism' This humble study is intended like Aeschylus' 'Oresteia' to be an outcry against war as a soldier poet of the Second World War, John Cromer, explained in his poem, 'Defined Attitude': Against the thought of war/ Against the talk of war/ Against war.