Chapter 21 - Edward Thomas (1878–1917)

Summary

The poetry of Edward Thomas (1878–1917) was all written during the First World War, but that war is frequently absent.He is an unusual war poet: an ‘Arts and Crafts’ war poet; a war poet who is focused on home but nonetheless committed to action and engagement with the world; a modern poet at home in the old wars and with the old tunes; a war poet of peacefulness.Thomas’s poetry addresses the war in its own way, directly and indirectly, with its own inclusive, hesitant, honest voice.We can see the uniqueness of his approach by looking at poems like ‘Adlestrop’, ‘The Manor Farm’, ‘The Combe’, ‘As the Team’s Head-Brass’, ‘The Owl’, ‘A Private’, ‘Digging’ and ‘Tears’.Thomas said of war poetry that ‘No other class of poetry vanishes so rapidly, has so little chosen from it for posterity’, but his own survived, and not simply because it contained very little of the war.