From Maldon to Dulce et Decorum Est: A History of War Poetry

“I am the grass, let me work.” From Austerlitz to Verdun, poets have tried to name what war erases. Journey through centuries of verse where battles, grief, and glory collide. We begin with the Anglo-Saxon shield wall at Maldon and the riddle of how a poet survives to tell it, then slip into Richard Lovelace’s prison cell and Andrew Marvell’s cool dissection of Cromwell’s wars. Hear Rule Britannia answered by Robert Burns’ sharp anti-war lines, and watch Tennyson’s Light Brigade ride into the Valley of Death as Kipling’s “Tommy” finally speaks from the ranks. Across the Atlantic, Whitman and Melville hush Shiloh; in South Africa, Housman’s Drummer Hodge lies under foreign constellations. The trench years darken: McCrae’s summons, Sorley’s stark refusal of comforts, Rosenberg’s sardonic rat, and Owen and Sassoon tearing at the old lie. Even Ted Hughes looks back, holding six young men in a single fading photograph. Discover how war poetry moved from saga and state pageantry to intimate witness. Watch to the end to feel how a few lines can outlast the guns. #warpoetry #WilfredOwen #SiegfriedSassoon #Tennyson #RobertBurns #Kipling