From a very distant vantage point, this poem is about what it's like to live during wartime. The imagery is dark, and each stanza furthers the gloomy appearance of things. "Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails upon the cross" directly relates the war to the Christ's crucifixion. What comes of this is whether or not the world as a whole are against Christ, making this mistake, or its a certain sect of people making a mistake. As such, is there hope in this mistake? Is this war, a premonition for a hopeful future in which this loss is saving humanity? I'm not sure.
There are many horrific allusions, specifically to a Field of Blood, which reminds me of the Germans taking people from their homes and murdering them via firing line. I feel like without having a footnote for each line, this poem would be hard to understand. There is so much context behind the mentioning of Lazarus, Caeser, The Potter's Field, Cain, etc. I think it's interesting to pair so much religious imagery with the tragedy of the second world war, especially in terms of a modernist piece. Which makes me wonder if this is on the cusp of post-modernism or not. Or what influences it takes from each.
What place does God have in a world that cuts its population dramatically over a handful of years?
My favorite portion of this poem is in one of the last stanzas:
Under the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.
For me, this line identifies the horrific events as belonging to all of humanity. If this awful thing happened, it is everyone's fault. The last line echoes a loss of innocence in the name of someone else. And so I wonder, was the war for us to learn from? Was this a mistake we must reflect on and never repeat again?
I agree “Still Falls the Bombs” has the most dark imagery that I think I’ve read about thus far. First off, the field of blood scares the crap out of me. It’s gross and dark imagery like that makes me think that this poem is probably the creepiest we’ve ever read. However, there is a glimpse of hope at the end. I portrayed the last lines of God forgiving everyone by washing away their sins. This glimpse of hope wasn’t enough for me since the whole poem was dedicated to bombings, death, and sadness. Overall, it made me super depressed with all the violence.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think Yeats is spookier. This is too hopeful for me. Halina explained in class how this is like anti-modernism, or like functioning against the modernist agenda in that there is hope, and some good will come from the crucification, ie the resurrection. Not sure if I remembered that correctly, but it's interesting that writers function during certain epochs as mouthpieces for eras gone-by. Like, this is basically saying, even though the wars happened, we still have hope, for some reason. But after WWI, modernism was like, "hey guys, so we just checked and god is dead and ideals are shucked of casing and torn of form, soooooo..."
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