the call-W.N Hodgson

overview (thesis)

In “the call” by W.N hodgson presenta a conflictef and deeply personal response to the outbreak of war, capturing the tension between private fear of leaving everything behind and public duty through a reflective, first-person voive. Unlike more overtly patriotic poems of the period, Hodgsons speaker acknowledges the allure of staying behind and avoiding the horrors of conglict, yet ultimatley feels compelled to answer the “call” to serve. The poem explores the themes of duty, inner conflict, and the pressure of societal expectations. Through this, hodgson presents war not as glorious, but as an unavoidable burden shaped by both individual morality and collective pressure

title: “the call”

• “beck and call”-always ready to obey someones order

• “a call to arms”: strong request to fight in the army

• from viewpoint of youth

stanza 1(1-2):

“ah! we have dwelt in arcady long time

with son and youth eternal round our ways”

“arcady”: ideal rustic paradise

“with sun and youth eternal round our ways”: repeating pattern of war/ religious connotations/ youth is eternal like the sun and live onto the next life

stanza 2 (L5-6):

“the wonderful white dawns of frost and flame”

“in winter, and the swift sun’s upward leap”

“white dawns of frost and flame”: alliteration shows harmony and fluidity, foreshadows contrast between the home front and front line, oxymoron- conditions vary from day to day

stanza 2 (L7-8): “Or summers stealthy wakening that came”

“ “soft as a whisper on the lips of sleep”

• sibilance: peaceful/ calm before war

• peaceful childish imagery of summer contrasts with harsh military language

stanza 3 (L9-10): “and there were woodland hollows of green lawn”

: “where boys with windy hair and wine wet lips”

“were": past tense- reminising and possibly regretting

economy of description- allows reader to feel senses

“boys”: emphasises youth

“wine wet lips”: alliteration: mimics the wind that is blowing through hair

stanza 4 (L12-13): “beauty and sorrow in hand with slow”

: “soft wings and soundless passage wandered by”

“beauty and sorrow hand in hand”: appreciating the beauty of the sunset because it is shortlived like their lives/ sibilance makes it romantcised and slows down pass

“soft wings”: angels- extended metaphor

stanza 5: “and white roads vanishing beneath the sky”

:

• “white”: colour symbolism- purity vanishing - represents heaven

• “vanishing”: sudden/ quick- like death

• calls for the young boys to follow them away from home even though they have “countless” things to express

stanza 6: “ and time hovered on reluctant wings”

“time” connected with “beauty and sorrow” through personification and use of wings

“reluctant wings”: young men are between childhoos and adulthood. Oxymoron - internal conflict within a soldiers masculinity

stanza 6: “made for the perfect glory that remains.”

• similar to pre-war glorifiying death

• end stopped symbolising end of a season of life

stanza 7: “ and when the summons in our ears was shrill”

soldiers are fighting for the people back home who are pressuring them to fight

stanza 7: “went strongly forth to do the work of men”

expectation of masculinity: only med are supposed to die for country

no longer children have no choice but to grow up

only men should kill