War and Poverty

Writers, no matter their time period, like to write about the beauty and the life they see around them. Nature and the everyday human life was the most common topic of the romantic’s era that hasn't yet disappeared. More than anything writers seem to write about social issues. Issues such as war, and poverty and oppression because these issues never seem to completely disappear. For example, an evaluation of the everyday working life of man can be seen in "Song to the Men of England" in 1819 and in "Inglan Is a Bitch" written in 1991. There is one hundred and seventy two years between these two poems and yet both address the unfair difference in the life of the working poor.  "Men of England, wherefore plough/ For the lords who lay ye low?/ Wherefore weave with toil and care/ The rich robes your tyrants wear?" (pg 412) and "mi know dem have work, work in abundant/ yet still, dem mek mi redundant/ now, at fifty-five mi gettin' quite ol'/ yet still, dem sen' mi fi goh draw dole." (pg 1599)  Both of these poems address the unfair conditions of the working poor. In “Song to the Men of England” the poet is addressing those poor men who were working in a time of economic depression and social turmoil following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. This poem is a call to arms to force change I the social and economic order. In “Inglan Is a Bitch” the speaker is bemoaning the unfairness of the working conditions for immigrants. In the passage quoted above the man was laid off after fifteen years of hard work and had to receive welfare at fifty-five. He ends the poem with the line “is why wi a goh dhu ‘bout it?” which seems as though it could also be a call to arms.

War is another social issue poets commonly write about, mostly because it’s an all encompassing topic that happens over and over simply due to human nature. Lord Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Bridgade” is probably one of the most famous of the Crimean War’s resulting poetry. World War One and World War Two and the Crimean War are a few that have poetry written for them. Even the modern wars in Iraq and Afghanastan, soldiers write about their experiences. Some topics are universal. Sadly enough, war and poverty seem to be some of them.