In Flanders Fields
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- This is about the poem. There is also a museum by that name in Ypres (Belgium).
In Flanders Fields is one of the most famous poems about World War I, in the form of a French rondeau. It was written by Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae on May 3, 1915 and published later that year in Punch magazine. The poppies referred to in the poem grew in profusion in Flanders Field, where war casualties had been buried and thus became a symbol of Remembrance Day. The poem is part of Remembrance Day solemnities in Allied countries which contributed troops to WWI, particularly in countries of the British Empire which did so.
An official adaptation into French, used by the Canadian government in Remembrance Day ceremonies, was written by Jean Pariseau and is entitled Au champ d'honneur.
The poem has achieved near-mythical status in contemporary Canada, and is easily one of the nation's proudest symbols. Most Remembrance Day ceremonies will feature a reading of the poem in some form, and many Canadian schoolchildren memorize the verse.
A portion of the poem is now printed on Canadian $10 notes, where it spawned a false rumour that the poem had been misprinted, resulting from popular confusion between the first line's "blow" and the penultimate line's "grow". The lines "To you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high" have been adopted as the motto of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team.
The poem has also inspired several "response" poems, written from the point of view of the still-living to whom the torch is thrown, in reply to the challenge that McCrae puts forth in his final stanza.
Critic Paul Fussell, in The Great War and Modern Memory, points out the sharp distinction between the pastoral, sacrificial tone of the poem's first nine lines and the "recruiting-poster rhetoric" of the poem's third stanza; he argues that, appearing in 1915, the poem would serve to denigrate any negotiated peace that would end the war, and calls these lines "a propaganda argument," saying "words like vicious and stupid would not seem to go too far."
[edit] Text of the poem
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
[edit] External links
- The Project Gutenberg ebook of In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems.
- Free audiobook from LibriVox
- This site contains an account of the writing of the poem and a facsimile of the author's manuscript.
- In Flanders Fields, a multimedia website
- Royal Canadian Legion web page about John McCrae, In Flanders Fields, and the custom of wearing poppies
- In Flanders Fields, setting by Canadian composer Michael Roberts
- In Flanders Fields, new musical interpretation by Canadian songwriter Jon Brooks, release date February 2007
