First of all, the morning was relatively quiet as tried to get everything prepared for my class. Some of the poetry I was teaching was new to me, in terms of teaching it that is, and there was a lot to get ready anyway. The reading list for today was much bigger than it probably should have been. However, sometimes like a kid in a candy store, I keep adding "just one more - because it's too good not to" to the list. Anyway, today's readings covered the first world war and the beginning of the second. We started with poetry by Rupert Brooke: "1914 I. Peace," "1914 II. Safety," "1914 III. The Dead," "1914 IV. The Dead," "1914 V. The Soldier," and "Heaven." These poems accentuated the patriotic feelings leading into the war and that some had throughout the war. Though World War I was particularly gruesome, and revealed true horrors in what mankind was capable of when the technology to wage war improved faster than the tactics used to wage it, and the technology was particularly horrific and terrible, there was still an underlying sense of the Arthurian ideals of nationalism, duty, and honor.
We then looked at poetry by Wilfred Owen: "Anthem for Doomed Youth," " Arms and the Boy," "Dulce et Decorum Est," "Exposure," "Futility," "Spring Offensive," and "Strange Meeting." Here is the much more personal view of the atrocities and the horrors of war. I even had one of the students tell me that she had dreamed of the vision that Owen describes so vividly in his poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est." Another told me (after Thurday's field trip) that she thought this class was likely to traumatize her with all of the depressing poetry and vivid images of the wars we experienced on our field trip.
I added in a couple of poems by Isaac Rosenberg: "Break of Day in the Trenches," and "In War." These two poems are a little bit more earthy in diction and style. They lack the more poetic polish of Owens poetry, though they express much of the same overall sentiment toward the war.
We completed our discussion of the war literature with several speeches by Winston Churchill that he gave near the beginning of World War II: 5/13/40 Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat, 6/4/40 We Shall Fight on the Beaches, and 10/29/41 Never Give In. This group of speeches rallying the British to the war effort, trying to coax the Americans into the war, and exhorting the British to hold on through dark times are all much more in keeping with the Arthurian ideals we have been looking at. In fact, Churchill even invokes some knightly imagery in one of the speeches.
After class, the faculty gathered for a brief faculty meeting to go over some plans as we near the end of the summer classes. After that, those who weren't otherwise engaged seeing plays, escorting family members, or doing laundry, went out to have a pint and a trip to Brick Lane for dinner. Well, the pint was well, a pint. We then chose one of the many Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants that line Brick Lane and had dinner. It was very, very good. I had a started of a vegetable samosa, and a main course of Chicken Madras. Madras doesn't just name a city in India, it also denotes a method of preparing food. Let's just say that the the only version hotter (in terms of spices) than Madras is Vindaloo. I like Vindaloo, but I opted for the Madras. Afterwards, we went out for another pint at a pub in London that has been a pub since the 16th century. It's called the Citie of Yorke pub. The decor is mostly Tudor, but the neat part is that it has been a hangout for many notable Londoners through the ages. The pub celebrates this fact by having portraits of many of them painted on the walls of the pub.
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| Several of the faculty members at the restaurant |
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| the main course - naan (the bread), lamb Madras (the curry on top of everything and in the bowl), and rice -great! |
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| me at the Citie of Yorke pub - that's a bitter in my hand - it's a local brewed ale |
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