World War I

The outbreak of the first World War led to the rejection of Victorian ideals, ideals that involved politics, day-to-day activities, life, and poetry. This helped to usher in the Modern Era. The best way to look at the profound affect that WWI had on the world is to compare that world before and after the war.


Previous to World War I a soldier would voluntarily give his life for his country. The values of English country living and domestic life were viewed as positive. This was the way of thinking as expressed by Rupert Brooke, a soldier on his way to battle who died on the transport ship. The attitude after the war was much different. Writers no longer attempted to try to glorify the war as was done in past wars. Writers like Wilfred Owen wrote in his Anthem for Doomed Youth the horrors of war. Wilfred described it as a sense of waste and usefulness. Siegfried Sassoon is another post WWI writer who was outraged with the war and how it was managed at home. In his work, Glory of Women, he attempts to remove all glory from the war.

These new attitudes and ways of writing about the war were in stark contrast with writings from the past. I remember Lord Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade and how it still managed to glorify the bravery of the soldiers despite the fact that it may not have agreed with the action. There is no glory in the post WWI depictions. This is just one demonstration of how the war affected the writers and attitudes of the time.