First World War Poetry Digital Archive

The Tutorials

It is recommended, but not essential that these seminars are followed in sequence. For further advice on using these seminars for teaching purposes please see the notes for lecturers and teachers.

An Introduction to WW1 Poetry

Photograph of Wilfred Owen, War Poet

An introduction to First World War poetry based around the theme of 'injury.'

Isaac Rosenberg's 'Break of Day in the Trenches'

Photograph of Issac Rosenberg

This seminar is on the poet Isaac Rosenberg, and is based around his poem 'Break of Day in the Trenches'. It is recommended that the seminar Introduction to WWI Poetry is studied first as this will help put Rosenberg into perspective with his contemporaries.

An introduction to manuscript studies

Image of Dulce et Decorum Est Manuscript

The aim of this seminar is to introduce editorial practices and manuscript studies. You will be taken through the various stages involved in the creation of an edition. You can choose Ivor Gurney's 'Strafe', Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce et Decorum Est', or Isaac Rosenberg's 'Dead Man's Dump'. These increase in levels of difficulty so we suggest beginning with Gurney's 'Strafe'. The stages you will undergo are: study of the primary sources (the manuscripts which retain the poem), choice of a base manuscript, collation of manuscript variants, and the production of your own edition.

Comparing Literature

Jewish and Christian Graves

This seminar examines perceptions about the Great War as a conflict being between ally and enemy, Englishman and foreigner. A selection of poems from soldiers of various nationalities who fought in the War are also studied.

Remembrance

Poppies at the Memin Gate

By examining the factors that shape remembrance this tutorial explores myth, memory, and the First World War and the implications this holds for historical understanding.

Analysing a poem using a computer

Manuscript and computer code

An introduction to text analysis. This tutorial illustrates how, by using a variety of free online tools students can gain a quick insight into certain uses of language by the poets of the Fist World War.

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Image of Dulce et Decorum Est mindmap

In this mind map students are asked to arrange the manuscripts of Wilfred Owen's poem 'Dulce et Decorum Est' in the order they were written by dragging them. Students will need to look at the images and see if they can work out the changes, and the order they happened in. this tutorial uses the free mind mapping software VUE.

Other information