Death of the Soldier and Immortality of War in Frank Ormsby’s A "Northern Spring"

• Authors: Karolina Marzec
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper analyzes the collection of the Northern Irish poet Frank Ormsby entitled A Northern Spring published in 1986. On the basis of selected poems, the author of this paper aims to examine the poet’s reflections about World War II, the lives of the soldiers, and the things that remain after a military combat, which are both physical and illusive. The poems included in the volume present the author’s reflections upon the senselessness of war and dying, short lives of the soldiers, the awareness of their own meaninglessness in comparison to the broader picture, and the contradictory and desperate need to be remembered nevertheless. They also show what is left of the soldiers and the war, as well as how life goes on, with or without them.

Keywords

EN

Frank Ormsby; war poetry; Northern Ireland

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture
• Year: 2018
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 107-121

Dates

published

2018-11-23

Contributors

author

Karolina Marzec

• University of Łódź

References

• Brown, John. In the Chair. Interviews with Poets from the North of Ireland. Cliffs of Moher: Salmon, 2002. Print.
• Brown, Terence. “Review of Freehold and Other Poems by John Hewitt; A Northern Spring by Frank Ormsby.” The Poetry Ireland Review 16 (1986): 79–81. Print.
• Clyde, Tom. “History Men.” The Irish Review 1 (1986): 113–16. Print.
• Ellis, Conleth. “Review: Wit and Crispness.” Books Ireland 106 (1986): 168–69. Print.
• Kendrick, Ian. “Review of A Northern Spring by Frank Ormsby.” The Linen Hall Review 3.2 (1986): 25. Print.
• Longley, Michael. Introduction. Goat’s Milk. New & Selected Poems. By Frank Ormsby. Eastburn: Bloodaxe, 2015. 10–16. Print.
• Ormsby, Frank. A Northern Spring. Dublin: The Gallery, 1986. Print.

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/texmat-2018-0007