Who was the most popular poet of the First World War? It was not Wilfred Owen -- not Siegfried Sassoon, not John McCrae, not even Rupert Brooke. The best-selling poet of the Great War was William Arthur Dunkerley, a teacher and the mayor of Worthing, a seaside town in Sussex.
Writing
under the pen name John Oxenham, Dunkerley was 61 when the war broke out in
1914. He never saw the battlefield and
never served in the military, yet the published volumes of this "armchair
poet" sold over one-million copies and were immensely popular with both soldiers
and their loved ones.
Today,
one-hundred years later, the writings of the best-selling poet of World War I are rarely
read or included in anthologies. David Roberts in his Introduction to Minds at War asserts, "Oxenham's
popularity may be accounted for only by the fact that he was in tune with the
most popular attitudes and images of soldiers," arguing that "those
who wrote from the armchair" relied on "inadequate imagination"
and often "showed a strange inability to grasp the nature of the war"
(16 -17).
It
seems curious that a poet who supposedly didn’t understand the war was able to
write immensely popular poems that mirrored the thoughts and feelings of both soldiers and
civilians who lived through the war.
Oxenham's
poem "His Latch Key" may explain his popularity, as the poem
poignantly communicates what the war meant to those who helplessly waited for
news of loved ones who had left home to fight for King and Country.
His
Latch Key
by
John Oxenham
("I am sending you all my keys except
the latch. That I will keep, so that
some day, when I get leave, I may walk in on you unexpectedly and give you a
surprise.")
And
long…long…long we waited
For
the sound that would tell he was here,
For
the sound that would tell us our vigil was o'er,
And
our hearts need be anxious no more,--
For
that sweetest of sounds that could fall on the ear
Of
those who had lived on the knife-edge of fear,--
The
sound of his key in the door;--
The
sound of all sounds that could bring back life's cheer,
And
comfort our hearts that were sore.
 |
| William Holman Hunt, "Light of the World |
For
that sound of all sounds that our joy would restore,--
The
sound of his key in the door.
And
we said, "We shall know when our boy's on the way."
And
we said, "We shall know when he's near."
His
step we shall catch while it's still far away,
And
with it an end to our fear."
"But,"
we said,-- "we will wait for his key in the door,
For
the sound that shall tell us our waiting is o'er,--
For
the joy of its rattle, so gallant and gay,
As
we've heard it so often of yore.
O
yes, we shall know ere he reaches the door,
For
his guardian angel will fly on before
To
tell us he's on the way."
And
so we waited, by night and by day,
For
the sound that would all our long waiting repay,--
For
the sound of his key in the door.
But
now,--
Well….
"All's Well!" …but we're waiting no more
For
the sound of his key in the door.
It
lies with him there in his lowly grave,
Out
there at the Front, where his all he gave
Our
lives and the Soul of Life to save,
And
our hopeful vigil is o'er.
For
now it is he who is waiting for us,
On
the other side of The Door;
And
Another stands with him there, waiting for us,
And
the sound of our key in That
Door.
The
poem speaks of the agony of suspended lives. In the first stanza, the word sound (or
sounds) is used eight times in twelve lines, and both the second and third lines
begin with the exact same phrase, “For the sound that would tell.” The repetition of words and phrases expresses the tedium and frustration of waiting, the sense of being stuck, of being unable
to move forward or break out of the anticipatory tension that permeates each
and every day.
In this war, the
same promises, the same battle plans, the same tragic results are occurring over and
over with numbing results, just as only seven rhymes are used in the thirty-seven-line poem. As the ears of
the souls strain to hear a familiar sound from the past, they catch only the
monotony of the war that stretches on into what seems like eternity.
With little fanfare, the war does extend into Eternity when those who wait learn that their soldier
will never return. The poem is silent
about how that tragic news is delivered, offering only the broken off thoughts “But
now,--“ and “Well….” and the stark finality of the line, “And our hopeful vigil
is o’er.”
The
last four lines of the poem abruptly shift both the scene and perspective. Here is no naïve optimism, but an assent to
the pain of continued waiting until such time as everyone has died. Yet the soldier who waits on the other side of The Door is not alone in his
vigil, but comforted by the presence of Another, and the last line of the poem
rings with the sound of reunion.
 |
| WWI Epitaph, British cemetery in France |
"[Dunkerley] 'showed a strange inability to grasp the nature of the war.'
ReplyDelete"It seems curious that a poet who supposedly didn’t understand the war was able to write immensely popular poems that mirrored the thoughts and feelings of both soldiers and civilians who lived through the war."
Roberts assertion regarding Dunkerley's popularity during the war is reasonable, and your comment accesses the reasoning: soldiers and civilians who lived through the war showed a strange inability to grasp the nature of the war.
The nature of the war was cold, brutal, industrial, exploitative, and criminal. None of those aspects of the nature of the war could comfort the soldiers and civilians who were making terrible sacrifices for the war.
To contradict Roberts in part, perhaps an inability to grasp the nature of the was not so "strange."
If one is a powerless individual caught in the war, caught in the grinding horror of civilization slaughtering itself, why would one want to grasp the nature of the war? How could one psychologically withstand grasping the nature of the war? Far better, far healthier, far more sustainable to comfort one's self with poems of "guardian angel[s]" and the "Soul of Life" and "The Door" of death, beyond which our murdered boy surely, surely! is waiting for us.
Poems of death by poison gas and suicide in the trenches comfort no one, but rather disturb; such poems disturbed soldiers and civilians who lived through the war, and continue to disturb us.
Dunkerley, however, provides no lasting comfort.
Insightful comments -- thank you for sharing.
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