Poetry has existed as long as language itself. It is omnipresent throughout every society, and is used in every language ever conceived by a human mind. The poets responsible for the poetry come from all corners of the world and represent all the eras in human history, thus creating an ever growing eclectic range of poetry. While the themes for these poems are as diverse as their type and rhyme scheme, the main purpose of poetry has always been, and will continue to be, to express a viewpoint with the hope of evoking an emotion in the reader.
It does not matter what the viewpoint is or what the emotion felt by the reader is, as long as the viewpoint exists with an intention to evoke emotion, it is a poem. Merriam Webster defines poetry as “writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm,” and I could not agree more. It should be no surprise during a tumultuous and divisive time like war, copious amounts of poetry is written.
People have opinions, and, because it is human nature, people want others to agree with their opinions. Poetry is the perfect vehicle to spread these opinions. One such poem is “The Call” by Jessie Pope, and one could almost consider it an understatement to call this poem opinionated. World War I changed the way humans fought each other, changed the way people viewed war, and changed literature forever. If there is one thing “The Call” by Jessie Pope is known for, it is its extremely jingoistic message. The poem is unabashedly pro-war, and it wants everybody to know it.
Throughout her life, Pope wrote for many publications including The Daily Mail, and almost all of her work promoted war and nationalism. As my classmate Holly said, “Jessie Pope was a poet who wrote many poems like ‘The Call’ promoting war. ” This simple yet memorable line, describes Pope’s work perfectly. After all, pro-war is probably the only way someone could attempt to describe Pope’s “The Call,” and one could easily believe she meant it to be that way. If Pope’s poem contained frivolous information, her message could be diluted.
Pope wanted the message to be in the reader’s face, and impossible to mistake. One of the great aspects of poetry is the fact one could interpret 1 poem 100 ways, and, while it is possible, it would require a very active imagination to interpret “The Call” in a different manner than Pope intended. So, why did I choose this poem by this poet? It is simple, I disagree with this poem. I personally do not like war, and I was not even the type of boy who liked to play with guns when he was little. One could say I vehemently oppose war and they would not be wrong.
I understand war is a necessary evil in some situations, but that does not mean every war is justified and does not mean war is good. I honestly do not understand why numerous cultures believe war to be honorable, because is the one place where even people with honor slip. There is a reason the expression “it is all fair in love and war” exists. So now that I have highlighted the dichotomy between my opinion and Pope’s, let us go back to why I selected this poem. I could have easily picked a poem I agree with, and that would have been alright.
I would probably go on about how I love the poem and its message, and this paragraph would be nothing but gushing. But what would I have learned? To be honest, I would learn almost nothing. Do not get me wrong, I feel elated when my opinions are reaffirmed, but all I receive is the short-lived minor euphoria from feeling like a genius. When opinions are tested that is when they grow. People with opposing viewpoints have an opinion just a valid as my own, and I lose nothing by examining their opinion. I chose this poem because I disagreed with it, and I wanted to understand how someone on the other side felt.
World War I changed a lot about the world, and those changes brought questions. In divisive times like World War I, it is always best to see why an issue is divisive before a side is taken. There is a reason multiple viewpoints exist, if we had the answers to the questions, we would not ask the questions to begin with. While poems containing no figurative language exist, they are often very rare. Figurative language is like the arms and legs of a poem (see what I did there). Sure, one could survive, even thrive, without arms and legs, but life is much more difficult.
Figurative language allows a poems to POP! (ha ha) and prosper. Your dictionary describes figurative language as “Figurative language is language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation. When a writer uses literal language, he or she is simply stating the facts as they are. Figurative language, in comparison, uses exaggerations or alterations to make a particular linguistic point. ” “The Call” is no different than any other poem, and does contain its fair share of figurative language.
Before I analyze the poem, I would like to state figurative language, like poetry, is often ambiguous. Sometime a line is not a concrete example of the figurative language its representing, and some many disagree with the classification of a line. With that out of the way, let us begin. The first thing anyone would notice when reading Jessie Pope’s “The Call” is the repetition of the words “my laddie? ” Out of the 24 lines present in this poem, 9 of them end with these words. This is an example of the literary device known as epistrophe, which is a repeating of words at the end of a sentence.
The words “my laddie? ” are constantly repeated at the end of many sentences, so this a pretty obvious example of an epistrophe. It should also be noted that each use of “my laddie? ” is a question. Pope is asking a rhetorical question each one of the nine times “my laddie? ” is used. One could also argue Pope is using “my laddie” as a title in the place of a name or using “my laddie” to express a name for a general idea. This would mean she is using the literary device known as antonomasia, but that is a little bit of a stretch.
I guess one could say this is one of the more ambiguous uses of figurative language. Another literally device used in this poem is anaphora, which is a repeating of words at the beginning of a sentence (the opposite of an epistrophe). There are actually two example of anaphora present in “The Call,” and they are the constant use of “Will you” and “Who” at the beginning of each line. Out the 24 lines this poem contains, 15 begin with either “Will you” or “Who. ” Also many (not all) of the lines containing “Will you” and “Who” are rhetorical questions.
Pope sure likes rhetorical questions, I can assume this is because they call the reader to action. When writing war propaganda, I assume that is what is wanted. Moving on, astute readers may have noticed another literary device just from what I have mentioned above. That device is parallelism, and parallelism is a device used when parts of a sentence are the same and similar. As I described above, words and phrases are very often repeated in this poem. In short, this poem does contains examples of epistrohpe, rhetorical questions, anaphora, parallelism, and possibly antonomasia.
Besides these, this poem is very literal, so it contains little, if any, other conventional literary devices. In the divisive time of World War I, this poem took its side, and used figurative language to accentuate its point. It is a prominent example of a poem that both moved society and literature in a different direction. I would say almost all poems contain a theme, but I honestly cannot think of a single poem without one. Even poem that contain just a single word have a theme, and poems comprised of simply gibberish have themes. While “The Call” is not a single word or gibberish, it does contain a theme.
The theme for “The Call” is something like “war and the men who fight in it are great, don’t be a coward and join in on the fun. ” Most of the lines in this poem promote war, and speak of the honor, willingness, and bravery espoused by the troops who fight. A good line supporting the theme is “Who’ll earn the Empire’s thanks—, Will you, my laddie? Who’ll swell the victor’s ranks—,” as this line perfectly demonstrates what Pope believes about war and the warriors. She says those who fight are victors and worth thanking, obviously she is trying to appeal to people who desire respect.
Another line from “The Call” that promotes the theme is “Who’s going out to win? And who wants to save his skin—. ” This line’s message is clear, it is stating those who fight are winners and those who do not are cowards. Both of these lines highlight the theme and describe Pope’s ideas perfectly. The use of literary devices also bolsters the theme as it really hits the message home. Most of the literary devices used in this poem are based on repetition, and the goal of repetition is to hammer a point into the reader by repeating it.
Words like “my laddie,” “who,” and “will you” are used extremely often, and have the goal of making the reader want to take action and cease being a “coward. ” Each time one of those words is used the effect is greatened, and the words become more powerful. By the end of the poem, Pope hopes the reader will, figuratively, have the words tattooed in their memories. The theme for this poem is very common amongst war poetry. Most war poetry, throughout history, has been pro-war, so this poem already has that going for it. However, this poem was not exactly written in an era where war was unanimously supported.
By the time World War I began, war became very divisive. There were two main groups, those who supported war and those who opposed war. This poem’s theme definitely fits in the former category. It carries a very similar to the poems in its category, but is very different from the poems outside of its category. If I were to compare this poem to ware poetry overall, I would say this poem is a typical war poem. By that I mean it is a poem with a theme who has picked a side, and thoroughly supported its side seeing little to no flaws in it.
World War I was a divisive time in literature, where the issue seemed black and white. An individual either supported or opposed the war, and that was that. Still, that was a lot of progress from the past where almost all war seemed glorious. World War I changed the way the world viewed war, and its effects can still be felt today. World War I was a time in history nobody will forget anytime soon. Not just because of the death toll and destruction, but also because of the way it changed how humans view war and literature forever.
Influential poets like Jessie Pope wrote their masterpieces during this pivotal time, and, along with the war, influenced a new generation who further changed the world. Before World War I, the consensus believed war was honorable and glorious, but as time marched on so did people’s opinions. Many still believe war to be honorable and glorious, but thanks to World War I some people are just a little more cynical and that is not a bad thing. World War I changed the way humans fought each other, changed the way people viewed war, and changed literature forever.
