Edward Thomas, born 1878 in England, was a WWI war poet. Born to Welsh parents in London, he was a highly prolific author and book critic and in 1914 he began to delve into the world of poetry after reviewing it for many years. Faced with the decision to enlist in the war to support his family or to continue with his work in literary criticism he decided to enlist by 1915. His chronic depression and feeling of certain death of him and his comrades caused his poems to center around themes of nature and beauty, as well as the death he faced daily. He was killed in 1917, just 3 years after he started to write poetry. Two of his poems, “Rain” and “Adlestrop”, can be seen as a chronical of his experience with the war. Adlestrop, a poem of an unscheduled
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“Helpless among the living and the dead, / Like a cold water among broken reeds / Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff…”
Here the imagery comes back again, from the beginning of the poem. We can imagine all the dead soldiers lying dead with the rain washing over their corpses; Thomas lying in his bed, surrounded by darkness, thinking of all the things he’s seen and knows about the war. The hypnotic iambic pentameter still within our heads as we read his story. The rhythm and imagery of these few lines give the reader an even more in-depth view into Thomas’s head as he writes this poem.
“Like me who have no love which this wild rain / Has not dissolved except the love of death…”
His love of death brought back in, because the rain has washed away everything except for his want of death. It seems as if he is so dead inside that he feels only right for him to be dead on the outside.
“If love it be towards what is perfect and cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.”
In the conclusion of his poem, he writes that should he wish it, the rain will allow …show more content…
In his poem, he tells of a train ride he took in which the train took an unscheduled stop in the village of Adlestrop. Although according to his notes, this was indeed a scheduled service stop, rather than an accidental stop. An important theme in this poem is nature. With an entire stanza dedicated to the plants and clouds, it is clear that this is him reminiscing on the beautiful landscape after being in a desolate war torn area for so long. Finishing off the poem is a stanza on blackbirds which can be read as once it was blackbirds that sang, rather than the whistle of falling bombs and bangs of the guns that killed his compatriots. Written in iambic tetrameter, this has a melodic storytelling feel, with no sudden changes in mood or
“Helpless among the living and the dead, / Like a cold water among broken reeds / Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff…”
Here the imagery comes back again, from the beginning of the poem. We can imagine all the dead soldiers lying dead with the rain washing over their corpses; Thomas lying in his bed, surrounded by darkness, thinking of all the things he’s seen and knows about the war. The hypnotic iambic pentameter still within our heads as we read his story. The rhythm and imagery of these few lines give the reader an even more in-depth view into Thomas’s head as he writes this poem.
“Like me who have no love which this wild rain / Has not dissolved except the love of death…”
His love of death brought back in, because the rain has washed away everything except for his want of death. It seems as if he is so dead inside that he feels only right for him to be dead on the outside.
“If love it be towards what is perfect and cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.”
In the conclusion of his poem, he writes that should he wish it, the rain will allow …show more content…
In his poem, he tells of a train ride he took in which the train took an unscheduled stop in the village of Adlestrop. Although according to his notes, this was indeed a scheduled service stop, rather than an accidental stop. An important theme in this poem is nature. With an entire stanza dedicated to the plants and clouds, it is clear that this is him reminiscing on the beautiful landscape after being in a desolate war torn area for so long. Finishing off the poem is a stanza on blackbirds which can be read as once it was blackbirds that sang, rather than the whistle of falling bombs and bangs of the guns that killed his compatriots. Written in iambic tetrameter, this has a melodic storytelling feel, with no sudden changes in mood or