Literary Text And Social Culture In War Girls, By Jessie Pope

As observed above, The New York Times has distinctly stated that a relationship between literary text and social culture/context from the past 150 years has ceased to exist. Through arguing this ridiculous notion, the author is lead to be proved not only incorrect, but ignorant of the existence to an abundance of published texts that exhibit an indisputable connection to social context. Literature is part of our cultural heritage that, through a number of forms, enrich numerous lives in multiple ways. Literature leads us as an audience intellectually and emotionally by deepening our understanding of history, society, and our individual lives. History plays a fundamental part in influencing literature: every novel, play, or poem one reads is

A primary example of this is the poem ‘War Girls’ written by Jessie Pope. Contemporary poetic devices featured within this text includes an ABABCC rhythm sequence, repetition, and imagery. This empowering piece of poetry describes the hardships that women bore as a result of men not being present. A description of women’s resilience is fiercely denoted throughout with a range of adjectives used in assistance to convey this message, “Strong, sensible, and fit, | They’re out to show their grit, | And tackle jobs with energy and knack”. What can be extracted from Pope’s powerful poem ‘War Girls’ is women’s strength and intelligence is highlighted, but so too are their traditionally feminine qualities, “Beneath their uniform | Beats a heart that’s soft and warm”. Conclusively, the provided poetic texts of ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ by Wilfred Owen, ‘Pluck’ by Eva Dobell, and ‘War Girls’ by Jessie Pope support my position in arguing that texts that have universal appeal aren’t disconnected from context, their quality, rather, lies in the way they reflect universal themes through the lense of the time and place that they are