Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Voice over
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The death of the hero
- 2 Survivors' songs
- 3 England's epic?
- 4 Who was Rupert Brooke?
- 5 Christ and the soldier
- 6 Owen's afterlife
- 7 Owen and his editors
- 8 The legacy of the Somme
- 9 The iconography of the Waste Land
- 10 War and peace
- 11 The fire from heaven
- 12 Henry Reed and the Great Good Place
- 13 The fury and the mire
- Notes
- Index
2 - Survivors' songs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Voice over
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The death of the hero
- 2 Survivors' songs
- 3 England's epic?
- 4 Who was Rupert Brooke?
- 5 Christ and the soldier
- 6 Owen's afterlife
- 7 Owen and his editors
- 8 The legacy of the Somme
- 9 The iconography of the Waste Land
- 10 War and peace
- 11 The fire from heaven
- 12 Henry Reed and the Great Good Place
- 13 The fury and the mire
- Notes
- Index
Summary
One of the first poets from these islands to raise a lasting elegy for companions killed in a battle he himself survived was Aneirin, sixth-century author of a sequence of elegies known as Y [The] Gododdin.
Of three hundred champions who charged on Catraeth,
It is tragic, but one man came back.
This brings to mind another text, one perhaps known to Aneirin:
And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them:
And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped to tell thee. […]
While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, the Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped to tell thee.
Whether Aneirin intended it or not, the double coincidence of the three hundred – elsewhere in The Gododdin defined as three bands – and the one survivor, adds a tragic resonance to his poem. Not that it is a narrative, although a narrative emerges from the elegies with which the poet celebrates the exploits of those who fell at Catraeth – or some of those who fell at Catraeth.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Survivors' SongsFrom Maldon to the Somme, pp. 18 - 34Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008