OBJECTIVES

1. OBJECTIVES • Finding out how literary texts may promote peace

2. LITERATURE AND PEACE Cargnelutti Alberto 4aD

3. WORKING METHOD • Textual analysis. • Class dicussions. • Finding relationships between texts and peace

4. MATERIALS • W.SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth, Mondadori,(English-Italian version). • W.SHAKESPEARE, “Hamlet” from handout. • S.SASSOON, “They” from handout. • S.SASSOON, “Glory of Women” from handout. • W.OWEN, “A Poet’s Statement”, from handout. • W,OWEN,”Futility”, from handout.

5. “They” S. SASSOON The Bishop tells us:”when the boys come back They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought In a just cause; they lead the last attack On Anti-Christ; their comrades’ blood has bought New right to breed an honourble race, They have challenged Death and dared him face to face”. “we’re none of us the same” the boys reply. “For George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind Poor Jim’s shot through the lungs and like to die And Bert’s gone syphilitic: ypu’ll not find A chap who’s served that hasn’t found some change”. And the Bishop said: “The ways of God are strange!”

6. “They” • Organized into two quatrains, spoken by two different people. • Poem referred to the First World War. • Two different points of view: the bishop’s and the boy’s one. • Aim: to inform what war is like and how cruel it is SIEGFRIED SASSOON

7. “Glory of Women” S. SASSOON 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 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 the 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.

8. “Glory of women” • It speaks about women’s reactions when their men fight in war. • Rhyme scheme: ABAB. • Two different points of view: the soldier’s and the women’s. • Aim: the poet wants to underline that war is unimaginable and only soldiers know it for certain. SIEGFRIED SASSOON

9. Futility W. OWEN Move him into the sun Gently its touch awoke him once. At home wishpering of field unsown Always it woke him, even in France. Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know. Think how it wakes the seeds. Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. Are limbs, so dear-achived, are sides Full nerved-still-warm- too hard to stir? War is for this the clay grew tall? What made fatuous sunbeams toil? To break earth’s sleep at all?

10. “Futility” • Poem about the vanity of men’s life. • Organized into two stanzas. • The second stanza consistes in answers. • Simile between a man and a star. WILFRIED OWEN

11. A Poet’s Statement W. OWEN This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to Speak of them. Nor is it about legends, or lands, or anything about glory, Honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all, I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do to-day is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.

12. A Poet’s Statement • Part of a preface. • It doesn’t celebrate heroes. • The ideals refused the ordinary paternalistic and rhetoric vision of war. • “War” is the most frequent word of the statement. • The poet wanted to draw the audience’s attention on the problem of war. WILFRED OWEN

13. “Macbeth” • Divided into 5 Acts. • Characters: Macbeth, King Duncann, Banquo, Mcduff, Lady Macbeth, Malcolm, three witches, Sireton, the grooms… • Macbeth: the protagonist • Lady Macbeth: his accomplice • Macbethspeaks about theascend to the throne and the death of Macbeth. WILLKIAM SHAKESPEARE