LYCOS RETRIEVER 
War in Literature: Poems
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In this and other wartime works, a newly created image of an irrevocably lost type of existence was more important than memories of actual pre-war life. The new hero constantly compared his wartime experience with that abstract image, his perception of the war inevitably evolved, as it were, in a parallel plane: one axis was a perception of reality from the point of view of a pre-war observer, a person from a different life; the other was a wartime experience that was difficult to make sense of and was being put into words for the first time. Probably the most vivid and capacious example of this dual vision is provided in a poem by Ion Degen. Degen was a doctor who wrote poetry and prose during the war; he ceased his literary activities in the late 1940s, when he realized it was impossible to publish what he wrote. This poem became well-known as an anonymous piece (Degen's authorship only became known at the beginning of the 1990s). Numerous hand-written copies circulated on all fronts.
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Many of the most powerful poems of the war are by Miguel Hernandez, of whom Pablo Neruda wrote, 'his face was the face of Spain'. Hernandez, a self-educated peasant, served in the Republican Army and was sentenced to death by Franco at the end of the war. He died in prison 3 years later, aged 31. In 'To the International Soldier Fallen in Spain', Hernandez writes tenderly of the solidarity shown to Spain by members of the International Brigades:
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Ask students to review several of the poems printed, either on the Great War site or included in the Online Resources below. The teacher may elect to read some of the poems to the class, ask students to read them, or if there is a computer with sound card, speakers, and if needed, appropriate software, the teacher may play sound files of some of the poems included on the site(s).
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Gudzenko's description of the cruelty of war was counterbalanced by this utopia of victory which anticipated postwar Stalinist art. A poem by Nikolai Panchenko may be quoted to illustrate the stark contrast between the two types. Anticipating the end of combat, he wrote in 1944:
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