tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post5420201013391577863..comments2024-01-02T15:12:14.699+00:00Comments on War Poetry: Frost and ThomasTim Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17917270014209480898noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-20248945074581673582009-01-28T20:36:00.000+00:002009-01-28T20:36:00.000+00:00I agree with you about Longley's edition --- it's ...I agree with you about Longley's edition --- it's wonderfully done. I reviewed it in the latest PN Review, but unfortunately the review isn't online. I commented there that Thomas's poetry had never really taken hold in the States, despite Frost's good offices and (more recently) the passionate advocacy of David Bromwich. <BR/><BR/>I will be posting about Thomas (and not just in relation to Frost) on this blog fairly soon.Tim Kendallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17917270014209480898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-79326468037472115272009-01-28T17:25:00.000+00:002009-01-28T17:25:00.000+00:00I've been reading with pleasure and some amazement...I've been reading with pleasure and some amazement (i.e., how could he be so little known in the U.S.) the new annotated edition of Edward Thomas's Collected Poems--so brilliant when writing on both inner and outer nature, and a "War Poet" mostly by fact of death rather than subject, or so it seems to me. His good friend Frost is a Yank stalwart, of course, but Thomas himself seems to be sadly neglected on this side of the Pond. Will you be commenting on his work here?IWitnessEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18312808828448124509noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-26983259486493017532009-01-21T12:26:00.000+00:002009-01-21T12:26:00.000+00:00As far as I know, Frost didn't express a view on t...As far as I know, Frost didn't express a view on the peace terms or any post-war threat. Frost and the Great War is an underresearched topic, which I'll return to in a future post. <BR/><BR/>It's a nice little ambiguity: 'unsafe'. One reason for favouring the interpretation that the foe is 'unsafe' from the Allied nations, rather than vice versa, is the word 'even'. That is, the foe may be thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine, but even though I know this to be the case, the war isn't over for me because I can't tell you (Thomas) the news.Tim Kendallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17917270014209480898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-13058788182536989982009-01-21T12:15:00.000+00:002009-01-21T12:15:00.000+00:00I don't think it's the foe that doesn't feel "safe...I don't think it's the foe that doesn't feel "safe" but the Allies who have suffered from German aggression. Isn't this poem echoing the feeling (sometimes found at the time) that the Armistice didn't go far enough, since it let the German Army go back to Germany in god order? <BR/>Is Frost on the side of those (mostly civilians, I think) who reckoned the Germans should have been pursued right back to Berlin and a Carthaginian peace imposed?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-13261612906450475492009-01-21T08:16:00.000+00:002009-01-21T08:16:00.000+00:00I'm glad that you like it --- or, at least, that y...I'm glad that you like it --- or, at least, that you like it more than I do! It would have been written between the Armistice and April 1920 (date of its first publication).<BR/><BR/>I agree that the awkwardness is part of the struggle to turn grief into words. Like many elegies, it distrusts its own artfulness. The poem proceeds through conditionals and negatives, as if hoping to take the impossible (communication with the dead) by surprise. <BR/><BR/>I like your point about 'unsafe'. I've always taken it to be referring to the thoroughness of the 'Victory': even thrust back into their own homeland, the 'foe' cannot feel safe.Tim Kendallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17917270014209480898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-83079612097764479892009-01-20T19:14:00.000+00:002009-01-20T19:14:00.000+00:00I think I like this poem more than you do. Parts o...I think I like this poem more than you do. Parts of the diction are awkward, but isn't that maybe because it's a poem about the unsaid, the words that were difficult to say? I think the last line is honest - that's his most precious memory of Thomas - the moment when his own poetry was validated.<BR/>I'm interested in "unsafe" in the last stanza. Presumably this poem was written after the war, but is Frost saying that he's still worried about German aggression. Do you have a date for the poem?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com