May Wedderburn Cannan Analysis

May Wedderburn Cannan – (1893 – 1973)

May Wedderburn Cannan was born in Oxford, England in 1893, daughter to the chief executive of the Oxford University Press (Greenblatt, 2043). At the start of WWI a now eighteen year old Cannan signed up to volunteer with the Oxford Voluntary Aid Detachment assisting with the publication of “government propaganda with Claredon Press” (Poetry). During her time as Voluntary Aid she spent a month in Rouen, France in 1915 at a railway canteen for soldiers. Her experience’s there would inspire her to write her most famous and anthologized poem “Rouen.” At the end of the war when the Armistice was declared Cannan was working with British Secret Intelligence, MI5 (Poetry). After the war Cannan married Bevil

After getting remarried to Percival James Slater in 1923 Cannan would publish only once more a fictional memoir titled The Lonely Generation (Poetry). Cannan war poetry often finds balance between the loss and despairs of war and the hope and promise of a reconcilable future, touting an alternative to anti-war writing she stated that “Someone must go on writing for those who were still convinced of the right of the cause” (Greenblatt, 2043).

Cannan’s poem “After the War” strikes an intricate balance as the speaker hopefully meditates on reuniting with her love but recognizes that he may not return from war. The poems first line “After the war perhaps I’ll sit again” it’s the word “perhaps” that suggests and uncertain future. While the first line of the second stanza “I shall remember then, and sad at heart” (5) argues for honoring of those past and the moving forward

The sorrowful love sonnet is written in the Shakespearian style by dividing the sestet into a quatrain and final couplet. The first stanza reflects her love who “must shortly go” (1) bringing the focus to English society during the “bloodshot years” (2) of where an entire generation of young men was lost to the war effort. In the last line of the first stanza the speaker understands the toll on this generation of English people as she remarks that “their numbers will not come again” (4) suggesting the overall loss of young men in England after the war. The second stanza presents the mental strife the speaker is going through, on one hand she is trying to be somewhat reserved and brave for her lover who is about to leave but also to attempt to take in and commit to memory every precious moment with her beloved because she knows it may be “the last of all” (8). In the quatrain the speaker lists the ‘lasts’ and remarks “Even serving love, are our mortalities” (11) suggesting that in serving the love of one’s country in the end it is the people, the everyday populous such as these two lovers who bear the consequences and despair that death brings. In the final couplet the speaker finishes with the comforting thoughts that love knows no bounds. Her love will never end and