Down the close darkening lanes they sang their way/To the siding-shed... (Owen) I watched love leave, turn, wave, want not to go, depart, return... (Duffy) Note how the inexorable logic of the soldiers fate and the dignity with which they faced that logic, including their resignation to the siding-shed of history in being swallowed up by the mud of the Somme, is lost in the boisterous bustle of Duffys staccato rhythm. Perhaps Duffy is trying to show the essential humanity - the unwillingness to go to ones death, wrenching oneself from the warm bosom of love - beneath all the purple of a soldiers response to war. But then she ruins it utterly with love went, brave soldier, the song dwindling; How can these trite words compare with Owens so secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went. Not only is the whole business of societys culpability for the war totally lost, but lost too is the finality of their going signalled by Owen with his violent full stop, where Duffys semi colon allows a redundant continuity into walked to the edge of absence!
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 18:40:33 +0000
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