Wilfred Owen and Jessie Pope: A Much Maligned Lady

 

More maligned than malignant

I've been writing a new book: a short, simple, light-hearted history of English poetry. And I've nearly finished. It ought to be out by Christmas and will probably be called Rhyme and Reason, although things are still to be finally decided.

While writing, I've found several things that won't fit in the book, but which, having done all the research I thought I'd put on record; and this neglected blog seems just the place to do that.

Today, for example, I've been chasing down something that I thought I knew about Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen. 

I remember being taught this poem at prep school, where Mr Wincott told the class that there was a lady poet in London who was writing verses telling people that it's "sweet and good to die for your country", or to use Horace's original Latin: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. 

Wilfred Owen's poem, we were told, was a brutal riposte from the actual soldiers - those who had fought and suffered - against the jingoistic women of London who were handing out white feathers and saying that war was lovely. 

I had a brief glance at Wikipedia, which told me that this was completely true, that the poet's name was Jessie Pope, and that the first draft of the poem was explicitly dedicated to her. The dedication was then changed to "a certain poetess", and finally dropped. 

So I thought that it would be jolly good for my book to print one of her poems next to his. Some of Jessie Pope's verses are available on the Internet, but they're all light-hearted rhymes and none of them fitted the bill. So I strolled over to the British Library this morning and got out Jessie Pope's War Poems (1915).

I've just finished reading the whole thing (it's not long) and there's absolutely nothing about it being sweet and good to die for your country. The rhymes are patriotic and encouraging: yes. They're very anti-German, but in a light-hearted sort of way, and there's actually one poem praising the a particularly honourable German naval captain called Karl Von Muller, in limerick form. 

But sweet and good to die for your country? Or anything like that? It's not there.

The last poem in the book is the most serious, and the closest I could find to anything like dulce etc. But it doesn't say that death is sweet. It simply mourns a soldier dead. Here it is [click to enlarge]:

Perhaps, I thought, it was another lady poet, and Wilfred Owen had got confused. So then I started trying to track the phrase in any poem from the relevant period. I found it. Twice. 

There are two poems praising dying for your country both titled Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori. And they both fit the bill perfectly.

The first is from 1916 and can be read here. 

The second is from 1917 and can be read here. 

But here's the thing. Both of those poems are by actual soldiers: Major Sydney Oswald and Corporal Harold John Jarvis. They're not by jingoistic women back home who Don't Understand War. They're by serving men who definitely do. 

What happened to the idea of the soldiers all being disgusted by Jessie Pope?

Jessie Pope's War Poems actually starts with a fan letter from a soldier reprinted in facsimile. Or it says it does. Here is the frontispiece:

The writing is pretty hard to decipher; but, after close inspection:

Dear Sir,

Some days ago I saw in your Continental edition some verses by Jessie Pope entitled "NO"

I would be very glad if you could send a marked copy of your English edition with those verses in it to 

Mrs Knight

3 Horsleigh Villa's

Star Lane 

Ash. Surrey

The verses were much admired by us all out here & I want you to send them to my wife for me, as they will be such a "buck up" for her, and bucking up means so much to those at home as well as for us. Really, they need it more, as after all, theirs is the most wearying suspense. 

I enclose you a couple of stamps I bought from home in payment, and at last find them useful. 

If you will do this for me I shall be very grateful

Yours faithfully

Syd G Knight [illegible]

I was immediately suspicious. It all looked too good for Jessie Pope. Was this just a sales ploy on the part of the publisher? Did a Syd G Knight of Surrey even exist? 

I decided to check up.

He did exist. And he made it to the rank of major. What's more he won the Military Cross. He survived the war and died in 1950. He was cremated in Woking (as mentioned in the Aldershot News). 

So what happens to the idea of Wilfred Owen speaking for all the Tommies against the women of London?

Well, he thought he was doing so. But he seems to have been entirely mistaken. The tommies liked Jessie Pope, and though there were poems claiming it was sweet and good to die for your country, they were written by soldiers. 

Why Wilfred Owen thought that about Jessie Pope, I don't know. But he was wrong.

My chapter on War Poetry just got a bit shorter, which is probably a good thing.

Here, by the way, is that poem that Sydney G Knight wanted his wife to read.