War Poet: Echoes of Conflict: Chronicles from the Frontline

By Fouad Sabry

What is War Poet

Poetry written on battle is referred to as "war poetry." Even though the phrase is most commonly used to refer to works that were written during the First World battle, it may also be used to refer to poetry that was written about any battle. This includes Homer's Iliad, which was written around the eighth century BC, as well as poetry written about the American Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, the Crimean War, and additional wars. There are two types of war poets: soldiers and noncombatants.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: War poet

Chapter 2: Ossian

Chapter 3: Bard

Chapter 4: Eisteddfod

Chapter 5: Irish poetry

Chapter 6: Aisling

Chapter 7: Brian Merriman

Chapter 8: Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair

Chapter 9: August Stramm

Chapter 10: Iain Lom

(II) Answering the public top questions about war poet.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of War Poet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Jun 24, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: War poet

One definition of a war poet is a poet who takes part in a conflict and writes about their experiences, while another definition describes a poet who is not a warrior yet writes about war. However, the term can be applied to poets of any nationality who write about any war, including Homer's Iliad, which dates back to around the eighth century BC, as well as poetry from the American Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, the Crimean War, and other wars. Although the term is most commonly used to refer to those who served during the First World War, it can also be used to describe poets who write about other wars.

Psalms is a collection of Hebrew poetry that comprises a number of poems that are about conflict, A significant number of them are credited to King David, ruler of the Kingdom of Israel who was the second in line, who is said to have reigned c. 1010–970 BC.

A further source of inspiration for the Davidiad was the account of David's ascension from shepherd to King, This is a heroic epic poem written in Renaissance Latin by a lawyer in the year 1517, judge, and Renaissance humanist Marko Marulić, who lived in Split for his entire life, Croatia, which was governed by the Democratic Republic of Venice at the time.

Furthermore, in addition to the few passages that make an effort to evoke Homer's epics,, The Aeneid by Virgil serves as a significant inspiration for Marulic's The Davidiad.

This is so much the case that Marulić's contemporaries called him the Christian Virgil from Split. The late Serbian-American philologist Miroslav Marcovich also detected, the impact of Ovid's efforts, Lucan, in the work, Statius is mentioned.

Marulić also wrote the epic poem Judita, in which the events described in the Book of Judith are recounted, While simultaneously implying that the troops of the Assyrian Empire were the pre-Christian equal of the Janissaries of Turkey and making a number of analogies and allusions to classical mythology for the purpose of illustrating the point,.

The poem is comprised of 2126 lines that are dodecasyllabic, after the sixth syllable, with caesurae as the sound, published in a total of six books (libars).

The linguistic basis of the book is the Split or Čakavian dialect the Štokavian lexis, in conjunction with a great number of terms taken from the Slavic translation of the Christian Bible used in the Old Church.

Thus, Judita serves as a precursor to the development of contemporary Croatian.

It is thought that Homer, a blind Greek bard from Ionia, an area located close to Izmir in modern Turkey, was the author of the epic poem known as the Iliad. The work is written in dactylic hexameter.

Both the Iliad and its sequel, the Odyssey, are considered to be works of Homer. The Iliad is linked with the Odyssey. Both of these epics are considered to be among the oldest works of Western literature that have survived to the present day. It is believed that they were initially written down orally. There is a consensus that the first written form dates back to approximately the eighth century BC. It is written in Homeric Greek, which is a literary language that was developed from blending Ionic Greek with other Ancient Greek dialects. The Iliad is written in Homeric Greek, which has 15,693 lines, according to the version that is generally accepted.

The Iliad takes place during the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium), which was ruled by King Priam and his sons Hector and Paris. The siege was commanded by a vast army drawn from a coalition of Greek cities, with King Agamemnon of Mycenae serving as the commander.

Many of the Greek tales about the siege are mentioned or alluded to in the Iliad, despite the fact that the story only spans a few weeks during the final year of the war. The earlier events, such as the assembling of troops for the siege, the purpose of the war, and associated concerns, tend to occur around the beginning of the story. In addition, the Greek gods not only keep a close eye on the conflict as it unfolds, but they also take active steps to intercede on behalf of the mortals whom they favor.

An invocation to Calliope, one of the Nine Muses who is responsible for generating both eloquence and epic poetry, is the first thing that Homer does in the epic. Following this, Homer describes a dispute that occurred between Agamemnon and Achilles, a warrior and a demigod, regarding a woman. Achilles is only able to prevent Agamemnon from being killed instantaneously because to the heavenly intervention of his patroness, Athena. Achilles, on the other hand, goes back to his tent and makes a solemn vow that he would not emerge until Agamemnon apologizes.

In the end, Achilles emerges from his tent with the intention of engaging in a fight with Hector to the very end. This is because Hector was responsible for the murder of his close friend Patroclus. Following a fierce and bloody conflict, Achilles is able to kill Hector and then proceed to dishonor his body on multiple occasions. But Achilles gives in and allows Priam to bring the remains of Hector back inside the city gates after Priam approaches his tent and begs for the return of his son's body. Priam's request is granted.

There is a detailed connection between the funeral rites that Hector performed and the combustion of his remains on a funeral pyre.

Despite the fact that the epic story comes to an end just at this juncture, before Achilles' inevitable murder at the hands of Hector's brother Paris and the fall of Troy, these events are foreshadowed and alluded to in a very vivid manner. Therefore, by the time Homer reaches the conclusion of The Iliad, he has conveyed the complete narrative of the Trojan War.

In the epic poem Posthomerica, which was written by Quintus of Smyrna in the fourth century, the events that took place between the cremation of Hector and the fall of Troy are presented in greater detail. His materials are taken from the cyclic poems that Virgil's Aeneid also took inspiration from. In particular, the Aethiopis (Coming of Memnon) and the Iliupersis (Destruction of Troy) of Arctinus of Miletus, the now-lost Heleneis of Philodoppides, and the Ilias Mikra (Little Iliad) of Lesches are those that he has borrowed from.

Memorial of Zarer is the title of a military poem known as Ayadgar-i Zariran, which was kept by Zoroastrian priests after the Muslim conquest of Persia. The author of this poem is unknown. The Memorial of Zarer is the only Pahlavi epic poem that has survived to the present day, and it is one of the earliest works of Iranian literature that has been preserved in its manuscript form. What are the hymns that are considered to be autobiographical and are credited to the prophet Zoroaster?.

This Book of Kings by Ferdowsi, which was written in the 11th century, recounts the legendary and, to a certain extent, historical history of the Persian Empire, beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the Muslim invasion in the 7th century. In addition to being the national epic of Greater Iran, it is also one of the longest epic poems ever written by a single poet anywhere in the world. One of the most influential people in Persian literature and one of the greatest writers in the history of literature, Ferdowsi is widely regarded as one of the most important individuals worldwide. A great number of works of military poetry can also be found in the Shahnameh.

The lament over the Muslim conquest, which was written by the former court poet of Yazdegerd III, the last Zoroastrian King of Kings, is still considered to be an iconic poem within Iranian literature and culture, and it is still quoted as a criticism of political leaders who are considered to be governing the Iranian people in an ineffective manner, according to Dick Davis, a New Formalist poet and professor who has translated Ferdowsi's entire epic into English.

The enormously important awdl Ymadawiad Arthur (The Passing of Arthur) written by Thomas Gwynn Jones depicts the final hours of King Arthur's life with his companion Bedwyr, beginning with the death of Medrawd at the Battle of Camlann and ending with Arthur's departure for Afallon.

The poem, according to Hywel Teifi Edwards, "gave back some of the mythopoeic grandeur which John Morris-Jones craved for. More than that, he made Bedwyr, the knight who was tasked by Arthur to throw the great sword Excalibur into the lake, a prototype of the Welshman of the twentieth century who, from generation to generation, fights for the survival of his culture against an all-consuming materialism. Bedwyr is a prototype of the Welshman of the twentieth century. One of the most emotionally compelling characters in Welsh literature is Bedwyr, who is suffering from the agony of the disaster that he thought would befall his defenseless kingdom if he obeyed Arthur's command. Because he is deprived of the protection of an unrivaled weapon, which is the final concrete evidence of Arthur's magical might, he is forced to continue fighting with nothing but his confidence in Arthur's promised return from Afalon to keep him going at this point.

During the National Eisteddfod in 1902, the poem was awarded the Bardic Chair to the person who wrote it.

The Fall of Arthur is an epic poem created by J.R.R. Tolkien. It is written in alliterative verse and was left incomplete at the time of Tolkien's death in 1973. The poem depicts King Arthur as a Welsh King who has been fighting against the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain.

Y Gododdin, the foundational masterpiece of Welsh poetry, recounts the story of Mynyddog Mwynfawr, the King of Gododdin in the Hen Ogledd, who gathered warriors from a number of other Welsh kingdoms and treated them with a year's worth of feasting in his mead hall at Din Eidyn, which is now the location of Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. Then, in the year 600 A.D., Mynyddog led them in a war against the Anglo-Saxons, which culminated with the Battle of Catraeth (which is believed to have been fought at Catterick in North Yorkshire). This occurred after Mynyddog had attended both Mass and Confession. Following a number of days of struggle against insurmountable odds, Mynyddog and almost all of his soldiers were ultimately defeated and murdered.

This manuscript has a number of stanzas that are regarded to be interpolations because they have no connection to Y Gododdin and are not included in the original poem. One of the stanzas in particular has garnered notice due to the fact that it draws a comparison between King Arthur and one of the fallen troops. This would be the oldest known reference to the character, assuming that it was not an interpolation that occurred later.

Bard the Welsh In addition to being there during the Battle of Catraeth, Aneirin, who is thought to be the author, was also one of the only two to four Welsh survivors who survived the conflict. Ceneu ap Llywarch Hen was the one who paid the ransom for Aneirin, who remained a hostage until that time.

Only one document, the Book of Aneirin, which dates back to the 13th century, mentions Y Gododdin's existence.

The Battle of Brunanburh was fought in 937 between an army led by Æthelstan, Together with his brother Edmund Atheling and an army led by Olaf Guthfrithson, the Anglo-Saxon King of England joined forces with an allied army, a Hiberno-Norse monarch who reigns over Dublin; He was the King of Scotland, Constantine II, Owain ap Dyfnwal, as well as, the Strathclyde King of Wales and Scotland.

The battle resulted in an overwhelming victory by King Æthelstan.

In accordance with Snorri Sturluson's adaptation of Egil's Saga, the antagonist of the story, a berserker from Icelandic nation, sorcerer, and poet Egill Skallagrímsson fought in the battle as an elite mercenary soldier for King Æthelstan.

Egill is also said to have composed a drápa in honor of the King, This can be found in its entirety within the context of the Saga.

The Battle of Brunanburh is also commemorated by an Old English poem with the same name that was published in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In 1880, Alfred Tennyson translated the poem into contemporary English using a metrical combination of trochees and dactyls.

Sasna Tsrer, also known as Daredevils of Sassoun, is the national epic of Armenia. It takes place during the invasion of Armenia by the Caliphate of Baghdad, which occurred around the year 670. The story focuses on the resistance of four generations within the same family, which culminates with the Armenian folk hero David of Sasun driving the Muslim invaders out of Armenia.

Fr. Garegin Srvandztiants, a priest of the Armenian Apostolic Church who was celibate at the time, was the one who gathered the oral tradition and wrote it down in the year 1873. The first edition of the epic was released in Constantinople in the year 1874. Although it is more often known as Sasuntsi Davit (which literally translates to David of Sasun).

Six decades later, Manuk Abeghian, a scholar of Armenian literature and folklore, performed an almost equally valuable service by compiling nearly all fifty variants of the epic into three scholarly volumes. These volumes were published by the State Publishing House in Yerevan, Soviet Armenia, in 1936, 1944 (part l), and 1951 (part ll), and published under the general title Daredevils of Sasun. The story was reworded, and a reasonably standard style that is understandable to Eastern Armenian speakers and readers was adopted. This was done because the transcripts are written in a variety of dialects, which provides several challenges to the current reader.

More than 2,500 pages of content are included in each of the three volumes. The term David of Sasun was given to a compiled work that was released in 1939 for the purpose of public reading. This text was capable of weaving together the majority of the significant events. From the year 1939 to the year 1966, every single translation was derived from this widely known original.

Leon Zaven Surmelian, an Armenian-American poet, survivor, and memoirist of the Armenian genocide, selected a tale from among all known versions of the epic, translated it into English, and published it under the name Daredevils of Sassoun in 1964. Surmelian was a survivor of the genocide. As part of his introduction, Surmelian offered a scathing critique of the literary interpretations of the epic that were published in Soviet Armenia. One of the many things that Surmelian condemned was the fact that, in the Soviet Union, the religious element is played down. This was owing to the fact that the state was atheistic and censored it.

In accordance with Snorri Sturluson's adaptation of Egil's Saga, the antagonist of the story, a berserker from Icelandic nation, sorcerer, and poet Egill Skallagrímsson waged a blood-feud lasting many years against King Eiríkr Bloodaxe and Queen Gunnhildr.

The conflict started when, following the infliction of severe insults, Egill killed Bárðr of Atley, a member of the family of Gunhildr and a retainer of Eiriker.

raging with resentment and rage, Her two brothers were given orders by Gunnhildr, Eyvindr Braggart and Álfr Aksmann, to assassinate Egill and his brother Þórólfr, his relationship with her had been positive up to that point.

However, Whenever the Queen's brothers went to challenge him, Egill was there to strike them down.

For the summer that followed, Eirkr's father, The King of Fairhair, Haraldr, died.

In order to ensure that he remains the lone King of Norway, Eiríkr Bloodaxe assassinated two of his own brothers and declared Egill an outlaw in Norway.

Berg-Önundr gathered a posse to capture Egill, But Egill was resisting arrest when he took his life.

Prior to departing from Norway, Egill also slew Rögnvaldr, the son of King Eiríkr and Queen Gunnhildr.

After that, he vowed to curse the King and Queen by erecting a Nithing pole and uttering the following:

Here I set up a níð-pole, and declare this níð against King Eiríkr and Queen Gunnhildr,—he turned the horse-head to face the mainland—I declare this níð at the land-spirits there, the land itself, as well as, so that everyone will end up in the wrong direction, rather than to hold or locate their positions, not until they wreak King Eiríkr and Gunnhildr from the land. He set up the pole of níð in the cliff-face and left it standing; On the ground, he gazed into the eyes of the horse, runes were cut into the pole by him as well, and spoke all of the official words that make up the curse.

(ch.

57).

Each of the King and Queen spent the rest of their life attempting to exact revenge on those who had wronged them. Additionally, Gunnhildr cast a spell on Egill, causing him to experience feelings of restlessness and depression until they are reunited.

Soon afterwards, Eiríkr and Gunnhildr were defeated and overthrown by King Haakon the Good and were forced to flee to the Kingdom of Northumbria, during the time of the Saxons.

Eiríkr and Gunnhildr became King and Queen of Northumbria in rivalry with King Athelstan of England.

In time, It was in Northumbria that Egill was shipwrecked, and it was there that he learned who ruled the realm.

Egill sought out the house of his good friend Arinbjörn, where they armed themselves and marched to Eiríkr's court.

Arinbjörn tells Egill "Now you must go and offer the king your head and embrace his foot.

I will present your case to him." Arinbjörn presents Egill's case and Egill composes a short drápa, reciting it with Eiríkr's foot in his hand, but Eiríkr was not impressed.

He went on to emphasize that Egill's numerous insults could not be forgiven, and that Egill must be removed from a position of authority.

In addition to this, Gunnhildr demanded that Egill be put to death immediately, but Arinbjörn convinced the king to wait until the morning.

Arinbjörn tells Egill that he should stay up all night and compose a mighty drápa, a poem that extols the virtues of his eternal foe.

In the morning Egill went again before King Eiríkr and recited the twenty-stanza long drápa Höfuðlausn, Alternatively known as Head Ransom, which is a full version of the passage that is found in Chapter 63 of the Egils saga that celebrates Eirkr for his many wins in war.

Eiríkr was so impressed by the poem that he decided to grant Egill his life, even though Egill had killed Eiríkr's own son.

During the Battle of Ethandune, which took place between May 6 and 12, 878, an army from the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Wessex led by King Alfred the Great defeated the Great Heathen Army led by King Guthrum of East-Anglia. The poem The Ballad of the White Horse, written by G.K. Chesterton in 1911, recounts the events that transpired during this battle.

The poetry made in Old English The Battle of Maldon is a celebration of the historical conflict that bears the same name. The sole part that has survived is an incomplete one. Byrhtnoth, the Ealdorman of the Kingdom of Essex, passed away on August 11, 991, while leading his warriors as they were engaged in combat with the crew of a Viking longship that had invaded the territory.

A poetic drama written by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1953 The Return of Beorhtnoth Upon His Return The events of the same Battle are depicted in the book Beorhthelm's Son.