Textuality » 5ALS Interacting
Glory of Women
You love us when we're heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a mentionable place.
You worship decorations; you believe
That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace.
You make us shells. You listen with delight,
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed.
You can't believe that British troops “retire”
When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run,
Trampling the terrible corpses—blind with blood.
O German mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
Glory of Women is a poem written by Siegfried Sassoon, one of the greatest War poets.
The word glory is a religious word, it refers to a divine light that shines from the sacred and to something worthy of honor, or praise. Since glory is attributed to an indefinite women, the reader might supposes the poem will be a celebration of women. Furthermore the reader might wonder why the poet decided to write a poem to honor women, who were not the direct protagonists of the conflict.
Only after a careful analysis, the reader will be able to recognize the ironic tone of the title and of the whole poem, that actually purports to criticize the ‘Glory of Women’. The poem accuses British women of gaining pleasure from the war and glorying in the fighting of soldiers abroad.
Glory of Women is a sonnet. The choice of a sonnet is again ironic, since a sonnet traditionally dealt with love, not with war. However, the poem is not structured as a traditional sonnet: it is made up of one single stanza of 14 lines. The rhyme scheme follows the pattern ABAB CDCD EFG EFG. The rhyme scheme allows the reader to recognize the organization of the poem into two quatrains and two tercets, that is the traditional Petrarchan structure.
The volta, the turning point of meaning, occurs before the sextet. Women’s romantic attitude to war (theme developed in the quatrain) is roughly juxtaposed to the realty of war (theme developed in the sextet). Therefore, at the volta, the language radically changes from the abstract to the concrete: from detailing what Sassoon takes to be women’s attitudes towards war to a more savage imagery of what war actually means. There is also, unconventionally, an even more pronounced volta occurring in the final three lines, as the subject shifts from the English women to the German mother.
The speaking voice addresses to a general you, placed in a strong position at the beginning of the poem. Conjecturing a link between the title and the first line, the reader understands that you stands for women.
On the other hand, the speaking voice exploits the personal pronoun we, somehow serving as mouthpiece for all English soldiers who have fought at the frontline. In other words, the pronoun we stands for those who have effectively experienced the cruelty of war. Therefore, right from the first line, the contraposition between the male we and the female you comes to the surface. War has raised an imaginary wall between women, who were at home, and men, who fought at the frontline.
Women are the addressee of the poem, and the focus of the first quatrain. The alliteration of the pronoun you at the beginning of each period of the octave is functional to focus the attention on women’s attitude to war. Women are accused to love soldiers just when they are decorated heroes.
The second line might acquire different shades of meanings, according to the meaning you give to the adjective mentionable. Firstly, soldiers are glorified as heroes and heroes should not be crippled. As a consequence, losing an arm or leg would not be a desirable injury, because soldiers would not be considered real heroes anymore. Secondly, a wound in an unmentionable place could refer to the soldiers’ minds. Many soldiers experienced psychological issues as a result of what they seen in battle. Sassoon himself had a really hard time when his friend died in battle; he was even sent to a mental hospital under the guise of having shell shock. Many soldiers had a hard time rationalizing all the killing and dying of men who probably did not really deserve to die since they were just fighting to uphold the honor of their countries.
Women are accused to love decorations that appear on soldiers’ uniforms. They believe that chivalry ransoms the tragedy of war. In other words, the speaking voice criticizes women’s superficiality.
Soldiers were out in the trenches everyday killing and dying. When they came home they were expected to act like the chivalrous gentlemen that they were before the war, but they had seen too much evil. Social doctrine did not exist out in the trenches, and soldiers were not able to adapt themselves to social conventions anymore.
The reader might understands that irony is the organizing principle of the poem. Irony is not hidden, but it is explicated in the sarcastic accusation you make us shells. The statement finds also historical fundaments. Indeed during World War I, many women were employed in munitions factories, a job that had only been held by men previously. Working in the factories gave women a new sense of independence and after the war they wanted to continue working. They provided the equipment of death.
Women loved to listen to stories of battle for entertainment, without understanding that those stories were the soldiers’ cruel reality.
In conclusion, the function of the octave is to prove that women did not seem to understand the reality of war, what fighting actually meant.
The alliteration of the pronoun you marks a climax of critiques raised by the speaking voice towards women. The climax ends with the image of soldier’s death (when we’re killed).
At line 9, the volta of the poem occurs, bringing a shift from the abstract to the concrete, from the idealization to the reality, from women’s perceptions to the soldiers’ tragedy. The first tercet focuses on the description of a real battle, where English soldiers are compelled to retire trying to save their lives. They have to run between their companions’ terrible corpses, deformed by the shells and the sufferings of war. The alliteration in the expression Blind with blood highlights the desperate and miserable conditions of the soldiers, who become just other dead bodies over the field of corpses.
The second trecet, that is the conclusive stanza, marks the second turning point of the poem. The speaking voice addresses to a German mother, an imaginary women who is sitting by the fire, knitting socks to send to his son. The German mother is a metaphor for Germany itself, motherland of his sons, German soldiers. Therefore the last line refers to German soldiers’ conditions: they are trodden deeper in the mud, trampled by English soldiers’ boots. The speaking voice reminds that there are no differences between soldiers belonging to different motherlands: at the end they become corpses abandoned in the same mud. The heroic decorations and the laurelled memories much loved by women, loose all their meaning in front of the soldiers’ death on the battle ground.
This poem is a very sarcastic poem. It marks the beginning of anti-women literature. Men resented the fact that they had to fight in the war, while women could stay home and pretend that everything was the same as it always had been. Men and women could not relate to one another as they had before.