tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post8676360379993768359..comments2024-01-02T15:12:14.699+00:00Comments on War Poetry: Hating your neighbourTim Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17917270014209480898noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-62967546744293500382009-04-03T10:58:00.000+01:002009-04-03T10:58:00.000+01:00I have to admit that I hadn't considered that poss...I have to admit that I hadn't considered that possibility. By 'war-profiteers' I took Owen to mean the businessmen, not their employees. That said, Owen is pointedly critical about people (especially women) doing their patriotic bit for the war effort: as he reports to his mother on one occasion, 'shells made by women in Birmingham are at this moment burying little children alive not very far from here'. <BR/><BR/>The obvious comparison is with the devastating double meaning in Sassoon's 'Glory of Women': 'You make us shells'.Tim Kendallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17917270014209480898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2499661274163551793.post-8125182688385091172009-04-03T10:53:00.000+01:002009-04-03T10:53:00.000+01:00Blogger is playing up, so George Simmers (author o...Blogger is playing up, so George Simmers (author of the Great War Fiction blog) has emailed me the following comment:<BR/><BR/>Whom does Owen mean by 'war profiteers'? I can't see industrialists sitting on the Scarborough beach reading <I>John Bull</I>, a paper that purported to speak for the working-class and the ordinary soldier, against the authorities. So I guess that, like many of the period, he was using the phrase to cover the munition workers who were earning more than in peacetime, and a great deal more than the soldiers at the front. Bottomley was an awful man, but <I>John Bull</I> was quite a lively paper.Tim Kendallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17917270014209480898noreply@blogger.com