Summary
Summary Stephen Spender - "A First War Childhood" - Analysis
This is a summary and analysis of the poem "A First War Childhood" by Stephen Spender.
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This poem is quite narrative. Spender narrates the emotion he felt asa child experiencing the cruelties of war from the beginning to its
conclusionary end - or at least how conclusionary an emotion can be.
In most of Spender’s poems, he tends to lose sight of the end as he
progresses in the poem, and often the endings seem abrupt or
non-conclusionary.
But in this poem, we can see that Spender has developed the same
idea and has managed to remain on rhythm. One can assume this is
the case because of two reasons. The first being that this poem was
written much later in his life, when he had had the time to nourish his
talent. Second being that this incident - and having spent his
childhood during the first World War had a major impact on him, one
that he couldn’t forget well into his adulthood - which perhaps shaped
his views to be a pacifist.
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BACKGROUND:
The Spender family had moved from Kensington to a furnished house
in Sheringham, on the Norfolk coast, for what Harold terms ‘domestic
reasons’. Presumably Violet’s health was a principal consideration-
she was now a confirmed invalid. Stephen Spender’s image of his
mother over the Sheringham years is of a reclining invalid; ‘perpetually
grieving over I know not what’. There was a doctor at Sheringham, Dr
Knyvet Gordon, in whom Harold had particular confidence (it was this
physician who, when Violet fell chronically ill, persuaded her to have
all her teeth out – the children never forgave him). Gordon may have
influenced him in his choice of residence.
It is also likely that the family was experiencing what would be the first
of many cash crises. And, of course, with the outbreak of world war, it
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