World War I: Analysis of Primary Sources and Film

Attitude towards War in Primary Sources and Documentary

After reading the 2 primary sources on World War I and watching the film They Shall Not Grow Old, respond to the following questions in a minimum of 700 words , but please feel free to write more. You do not need to answer every single question, but use them as a jumping off point and respond to the questions you find the most interesting or relevant. Your response should analyze at least 2 direct quotes from each primary source, and refer to specific scenes from the documentary. Readings: Documentary: https://www.amazon.com/They-Shall-Not-Grow

What is their attitude on war?

How does the feelings expressed in these poems differ from the excitement at the beginning of the war?

Are poems a good primary source to learn about World War I?

Why or why not? Do you like any of these poems? Are they good or powerful literary works?

Erich Maria RemarqueAll Quiet on the Western Front (1929) What can we learn about the soldier’s experience in the war from this memoir?

Is this a pro-war or anti-war document?

What scenes stood out to you?

They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) What can this film teach us about World War I?

What do we learn about the daily lives of soldiers in the trenches?

Does seeing this footage in color change the way you think or feel about the war?

Does it add something to the experience? How is actually seeing footage of the war different than just reading about it?

Does it change the way you think about it?

Peace

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary, Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move, And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary, And all the little emptiness of love!Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there, Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending, Naught broken save this body, lost but breath; Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there But only agony, and that has ending; And the worst friend and enemy is but Death

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That men call age; and those who would have been, Their sons, they gave, their immortality.Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth, Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain. Honour has come back, as a king, to earth, And paid his subjects with a royal wage; And nobleness walks in our ways again; And we have come into our heritage.