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Friday, April 30, 1965 University Daily Kansan
Poems of War Heard At SUA Poetry Hour
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There is a great volume of poetry based on war, Prof. Rothwell told his audience. "There is nearly as much poetry written about war as about love." He divided the poetry based on wars into three categories: heroic, romantic, and ironic.
War and the poems that are written in its wake and aftermath was the theme chosen by Kenneth Rothwell, associate professor of English, yesterday at the SUA Poetry Hour.
The tall, slim professor began his readings with a selection from Homer's "Iliad": the farewell scene between Hector and his wife Andromache. Holding their son in her arms, Andromache holds him out to Hector, who frightens the child with his glimmering, bronzed helmet. Hector thrusts off his helmet and holds the child in a moving scene.
THE BIBLE was his next source, as David's lament for Saul and Jonathan from the second book of Samuel. Rothwell read the lines, which he later called "heroic poetry, starkly realistic."
In this poem, the mother of a boy, who is overseas rushes out to call her husband into the house to read a letter that supposedly has come from their son. As they look more closely at the letter, they realize that it tells not of the return or the good health of their son, but of his death.
Prof. Rothwell spoke of the Victorian approach to war, saying that it not merely romanticized war, it dramatized it. Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote "The Charge of The Light Brigade" in this very manner.
IN AMERICA at the same time, Walt Whitman was writing poems of war, also, including the "Come Up From the Fields, Father," which "captures the spirit of the World War."
A gruesome bit of verse, called "The U.S. Sailor with a Japanese Skull" written by Winfield Scott, described the more horrible aspect of war, as a sailor skins the skull of a fallen soldier, and keeps it for a memento of the battle . . . "bodiless, nameless, it and the sun offend each other," the lines ran. The soldier excuses himself from blame by saying that he didn't know the man, anyway.
"AS THE WORLD WAR becomes bitterer and bitterer, the poetry becomes bitterer and bitterer," Prof. Rothwell continued. Wilfred Owens' "Anthem for Dying Youth," was a clear example of this.
Ending his readings on a romantic note, Prof. Rothwell read the world-famous poem written by a 19-year-old Royal Canadian Air Force Pilot, "High Flight." The young author died at the age of 20, leaving little or no record of any other poetry or works behind him.
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