Posts by Tekken

Tekken_War

Jun 15, 2008

Poetry / Gone gone again by Edward Thomas [4]

Hi Gloria,
Thank you for your quick reply.

As for Who do you think the lost one was? . Is he talking about his old friend?
I think IMO that the fourth stanza, is talking about when he was young he lost one of his best buddy but as the time when the war begin, his best bud (young men) turning into corpse.

I check the definition of dung means excrement. So i'm not sure if i describe properly for corpse.

To answer the next one, In the next stanza he begins to talk of the old abandoned house; where is it located? I think is located in Blenheim and it's in the country.

So the fifth stanza, he just describing about the abandoned house that look like a grave with old style and nobody lived in this building except the grass is still growing.

But i don't understand your last question --> What do the empty shells of the houses and the vulnerability of windows without panes say about those who have experienced war?.

Can you also help me for the 7, 8 ,9 stanza? Thank you

Tekken_War

Jun 15, 2008

Poetry / Gone gone again by Edward Thomas [4]

Hello, i need some help for my essay test. Yes! I still have school (summer school) and sorry for disturbing your vacation. :D. As for the topic, i need to described the Pastoral form to indirectly criticize both modern society and the war itself. I need some help about the pastoral thing and this poem analysis as i got confused. Here is the poem below and what i understood so far... I guess.

Gone, gone again,
May, June, July,
And August gone,
Again gone by,

The first stanza mentioned that the time went very fast and he still waiting again. I was thinking that maybe he was in the trench since there is no battle in the battlefield.

Not memorable
Save that I saw them go,
As past the empty quays
The rivers flow.

The second stanza is a bit confusing me. I know he's talking about the empty houses.

And now again,
In the harvest rain,
The Blenheim oranges
Fall grubby from the trees

Since it is during the war. I expect Harvest rain = incoming shells to the city of Blenheim that cause destruction.

As when I was young
And when the lost one was here
And when the war began
To turn young men to dung.

Look at the old house,
Outmoded, dignified,
Dark and untenanted,
With grass growing instead

Of the footsteps of life,
The friendliness, the strife;
In its beds have lain
Youth. love, age, and pain:

I am something like that;
Only I am not dead,
Still breathing and interested
In the house that is not dark:-

I am something like that:
Not one pane to reflect the sun,
For the schoolboys to throw at -
They have broken every one.

As i keep reading, I am confuse. Now i have to rethink and reread since the poem doesn't talk about the battlefield but somehow about the house or buildings. Can you help me? Thank you.