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They heard no mother’s sweet lullabying,
They did not listen to grandfather’s tales,
Only harsh voices of tanks terrified them,
Alarmed by widows’ heartening wails.
They wept not through sleepless nights of battle,
Carried safe down to the cellars from bed,
And the first words which they learned to prattle
Were about Nazi and fighting and bread
The strife will grow quit. The foeman be humbled,
The children all long for that day, one and all,
When from the clouds, like warm raindrops tumbling,
Down on war’s ashes thick silence will fall.
They will venture from home to the fields, shyly doubtful,
So that, the first time in their lives, they live in peace
Can delight in their own native landscape about them,
A hear the bell of a brook in the reeds.
The scent of the fields, the woods’ beauty delight you,
But their hearts will still tremble from fear many days,
They will see in the first stork an aeroplane flying,
They will see in the first dawn-light a city ablaze.
The thunder beyond the far woods gently booming
Will bring back the terror of booming once more,
And often, yes often, through their pure dreams looming,
Loudly the voices of battle will roar.
The poet also used the literary feature Imagery to relate back to the theme of war. Within the poem the poet used Imagery to create a clearer picture to the reader of the way things were during the Blitz, and how children grew up during the Blitz. On the last couple of lines of the third stanza the poet uses imagery as she says, “When from the clouds, like warm raindrops tumbling, Down on war’s ashes thick silence will fall.” Here the poet starts to use imagery to paint a clearer picture of what happened when the war ended. As she starts to describe the scene by saying, “warm raindrops tumbling, down on wars ashes”. By using imagery the poet helped the reader imagine the scene in more detail. The poet then continues to use imagery on the first line of the fifth stanza when she says “The scent of the fields, the woods’ beauty delight you” helping the reader step into the children’s shoes, and imagine the beauty of the woods in their eyes. Even though the war just ended and the woods were probably destroyed it still looked wonderful in their eyes because it was something new to them after being raised in a cellar. Later on in the poem the poet uses imagery on the last line of the poem as she starts to explain the fear that will live in the children’s dreams for the rest of their lives as she says ‘Loudly the voices of battle will roar.” By using the terms “battle” and “roar” it made it easier for the reader to try and imagine the scene in the children’s dreams and how much effect the Blitz had on children’s lives. By using imagery in the poem, the poet made it easier for the reader to visualize the scenes of the Blitz, and be able to imagine how the children might have felt in such a terrible time.
In conclusion the poets use of Onomatopoeia, Symbolism, and Imagery helped express the sub theme of the children’s lives and how their childhood was shattered due to them growing up in such a terrible time. By using these literary features it helped express the children’s experiences of war in more depth. These literary features also made the poem easier for the reader to relate to the children and how they might have felt at that time. The sub theme relates back to the main theme of war because the poem was about children whose childhood was lost because of the Blitz, and how the war will affect the children for the rest of their lives. The poet used this poem to write about her experience in war, and how she might have been one of the children who were born in that time, therefor writing about how she grew up and how her childhood was lost because of the Blitz. The poet used language to express her experience in war by using Onomatopoeia, Symbolism, and Imagery, which helped make the poem more effective and made it easier for the poet to express all of her thoughts and feelings in the poem and to make it easier for the reader visualize the time of the Blitz.
- The Blitz (meaning "lightning" in German) was a period of nonstop bombing of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
- Between 7 September 1940 and 21 May 1941 there were major aerial attacks in which more than 100 tonnes of high explosives were dropped on 16 British cities.
- Over a period of 267 days , London was attacked 71 times,
- Birmingham, Liverpool and Plymouth eight times
- Bristol six, Glasgow five, Southampton four
- Portsmouth and Hull three, and there was also at least one large raid on another eight cities
The poem Blitz Babies was originally written by Pimien Pancakanka in Russian, and was translated to English by Vera Rich. The question I will be focusing on while analyzing this poem is “How does the poet use language to express their experiences of war?” The overall theme of this poem was war and the sub theme was children growing up during the Blitz, and the poem follows the theme because it was all about the Blitz, which is the war, which happened between Germany and the United Kingdom in the end of the 1940’s. The poem Blitz Babies starts off with the poet talking about how the children who grew up during the Blitz suffered, using examples of how they went through sleepless nights during the battle while the war was going on using words such as “alarmed” to express the way they felt at night. Then the poet shifts in the middle to talk about how it would be when the war is over, when children will for the very first time witness the beautiful landscape of their country in silence. At the end of the poem the poet starts to talk about how the war will effect the children for the rest of their lives, even though it is over they will still live in fear because of them growing up in such a tough time. In this presentation I will be focusing on Onomatopoeia, Symbolism, and Imagery. I will be focusing on these three literary features because the poet uses them to describe the war. These three literary features will also help explain in detail how the poet used language in her poem to express the larger theme, which is “war”, and the children’s experience in war.
Throughout the poem the poet uses Onomatopoeia to relate back to the theme war, which helps enhance their expression of war. The poet uses Onomatopoeia several times through out the poem to describe what the children were hearing and often what they were missing out on due to them growing up during the Blitz. In the Very start of the poem the poet says, “They heard no mother’s sweet lullabying, they did not listen to grandfather’s tales”. Here the poet used Onomatopoeia to symbolize how the children who grew up during the Blitz missed out on such beautiful sounds such as lullabying due to them growing up in such a tragic time. Then on the same stanza the poet shifts and starts talking about the sounds that they did hear during the war, which she described as “harsh voices of tanks”. The poet continues to use Onomatopoeia throughout the whole poem up until the last stanza. On the last stanza of the poem, the poet uses Onomatopoeia to describe how the sound of thunder brings back fear using the word “booming,” as she says, “ The thunder beyond the far woods gently booming will bring back the terror of booming once more”. Then on the last line the poet continues to use Onomatopoeia as she describes the sounds of war using words such as “loud voices of battle” and “roar” as she says, “loudly the voices of battle will roar” to portray how harsh and loud the voices were. By using onomatopoeia to describe the horror and fear the children lived during the Blitz it helped paint a clearer picture for the reader about the Blitz.