In the Book of Genesis, Abraham (Abram) is tempted by God, who tells him to sacrifice his only son. Obediently Abraham takes Isaac, and is prepared to kill him, but God interrupts and offers him an animal to sacrifice instead.
One wonders about the conversation between father and son on the way home.
Owen’s poem revises the well-known story. The old man refuses to sacrifice the Ram of Pride and goes on with the slaughter. As statement the poem’s effective, as a poem it’s heavy handed.
The archaic diction and syntax evokes the memory of the prose of the King James Bible; but the ‘belts and straps’ and ‘parapets and trenches’ seem an unnecessary attempt to force the link between the Biblical sacrifice to the trenches and parapets of the first world war, manned by young men with belts and straps.
At the risk of being heretical, I think Leonard Cohen’s lyric to the song ‘The story of Isaac’ makes the point more powerfully, and more effectively.
All content for The Poetry Voice is the property of Liam Guilar and is served directly from their servers
with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
In the Book of Genesis, Abraham (Abram) is tempted by God, who tells him to sacrifice his only son. Obediently Abraham takes Isaac, and is prepared to kill him, but God interrupts and offers him an animal to sacrifice instead.
One wonders about the conversation between father and son on the way home.
Owen’s poem revises the well-known story. The old man refuses to sacrifice the Ram of Pride and goes on with the slaughter. As statement the poem’s effective, as a poem it’s heavy handed.
The archaic diction and syntax evokes the memory of the prose of the King James Bible; but the ‘belts and straps’ and ‘parapets and trenches’ seem an unnecessary attempt to force the link between the Biblical sacrifice to the trenches and parapets of the first world war, manned by young men with belts and straps.
At the risk of being heretical, I think Leonard Cohen’s lyric to the song ‘The story of Isaac’ makes the point more powerfully, and more effectively.
The second of these two poems was written in response to the first.
A.E.Houseman (1859-1936) was one of the leading classical scholars of his day. Today he’s remembered as the author of ‘The Shropshire Lad’ , one of the most well known collections of poems from the first quarter of the last century. I suspect his mercenary army owes a lot to Xenophon’s classic account of how ten thousand Greek soldiers marched to the sea after their Persian paymaster was killed in battle. Hugh MacDairmid (1892-1978), one of the significant Scottish poets of the twentieth century, had a less romantic view of mercenaries. which i suspect might be shared by those unlucky enough to have encountered them.
The Poetry Voice
In the Book of Genesis, Abraham (Abram) is tempted by God, who tells him to sacrifice his only son. Obediently Abraham takes Isaac, and is prepared to kill him, but God interrupts and offers him an animal to sacrifice instead.
One wonders about the conversation between father and son on the way home.
Owen’s poem revises the well-known story. The old man refuses to sacrifice the Ram of Pride and goes on with the slaughter. As statement the poem’s effective, as a poem it’s heavy handed.
The archaic diction and syntax evokes the memory of the prose of the King James Bible; but the ‘belts and straps’ and ‘parapets and trenches’ seem an unnecessary attempt to force the link between the Biblical sacrifice to the trenches and parapets of the first world war, manned by young men with belts and straps.
At the risk of being heretical, I think Leonard Cohen’s lyric to the song ‘The story of Isaac’ makes the point more powerfully, and more effectively.
