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Jessie Pope's War Poems

Jessie Pope

Jessie Pope published these poems during the early months of the First World War. They were very popular at the time and the author received many letters of support and gratitude including some from men serving at the Front. The poems illustrate the patriotic and optimistic (and perhaps rather naive) view of the war which many people had at the time. Later soldier poets like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, who had personal experience of the conflict, painted a grimmer picture. Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” was initially dedicated to Pope ("to a certain lady poetess") as a direct rebuttal of her view of the war. (Summary by Alan Mapstone)