With reference to the poem After Blenheim and the short story Old Man at the Bridge highlight how the two pieces depict the inpact of war on innocent civilians. Compare and contrast the theme of these two pieces.
Answers
After Blenheim" is an anti-war poem written by English Romantic poet laureate Robert Southey in 1796. The poem is set at the site of the Battle of Blenheim (1704), with the questions of small children about a skull one of them has found.
The old man in Southey's poem 'After Blenheim' is Old Kaspar, a man who had suffered much in the hands of warmongers during the Battle of Blenheim. He is a representative of the common stereotype people who glorify war without a reason. He is someone who wants to stick to the old ideals.
Answer:
Explanation:
Both of these pieces of literature
portray the destructive nature of war
and how a war spares no one, be it a common
man who is without politics or the
environment around.
It focuses on the futility of war and provides the reader
with the message that war should be avoided at all costs.