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PART 3: The Second World War |
How to Kill Keith Douglas Under the parabola of a ball, Now in my dial of glass appears and look, has made a man of dust The weightless mosquito touches
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INDEX the first world war
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INFORMATION
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HISTORY Keith Douglas was injured by a landmine during the battles in Egypt, and was taken to a hospital in what was then Palestine. He took the opportunity to write poems while he recovered, and then went back to active service. He was killed during the Allied invasion of Normandy. He was only 24 years old. Some people have said that he would have been one of the century's greatest poets if he had lived. Keith Douglas himself said that most of the poetry of the war would be written only after it was over, whether by soldiers or civilians. He knew that this war had involved civilians to a much greater extent than ever before, though he did not know that an estimated 27 million civilians would be killed by the end of the war - double the number of soldiers killed.
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IDEAS What can be unpacked is up to the reader. Here are some ideas that might be noticed: What we know of Keith Douglas from his letters and poems is that he was a romantic person and also an ironic one: he could see the difference between what is true and what appears to be true. He was also unsentimental about death, and fully expected to die as he did. What is this poem, really? The poet sharing his own experience? His attempt to show what goes on in war? A warning? That mosquito: its thin legs like the cross-hairs in the gun sight, its whine like the whine of a bullet....It 'fuses' with the image of Death, and 'fuses' the 'soldier who is going to die' with his man-made death. Perhaps the tone of the last verse helps to bring home what an awful act has been done - and how killing dehumanises a killer.
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