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The Battle of Blenheim
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“The Soldier’s Funeral” by Robert Southey (1799)
Written about the same time as “The Battle of Blenheim” and carrying a similar theme, this poem describes the funeral of a soldier. The man was torn from his home, likely never saw his children, and they knew no father; his mother does not know of his death. In spite of being made, like all humans, by God, he was fated to become “[a] mere machine of murder” (Line 41). Some people think this is acceptable, and they call themselves Christians. The speaker, however, feels he must denounce the injustice of it.
“The Victory” by Robert Southey (1799)
Southey wrote this poem at a time when England had been at war with France for more than five years. Church bells celebrate a victory for the navy, and it is a “day / Of glory” (Lines 6-7) for England. Some of the dead are being forgotten, however, including one sailor who had been forced by “lawful violence” (Line 18) to join the navy—this shows Southey’s anger at the brutal methods of navy recruitment—and had to leave his wife and children. The speaker asks God to comfort the man’s widow, for only God knows the depth of suffering that she is experiencing. The poem shows Southey’s empathy for the men who die in war and an awareness of the pain their deaths cause their families.
“The Complaints of the Poor” by Robert Southey (1796)
This poem, which like “The Battle of Blenheim” is in ballad stanzas and meter, reveals the youthful Southey’s social conscience, his compassion for the poor. A rich man asks why the poor complain, so the narrator takes him on an evening walk in frozen city streets. They meet four people, all of whom have little choice but to be on the street begging: an old man who has no fire at home; a child whose father is sick in bed; a woman with two young children whose husband is a soldier serving abroad; and a girl who is impoverished. The rich man is silent throughout, and at the end the narrator says he has answered the man’s question.
Further Literary Resources
“Valenciennes” by Thomas Hardy (1899)
The narrator is an English corporal who fought in the battle of Valenciennes in June/July 1793, in which the English defeated the French. Southey’s “The Battle of Blenheim” may well have been one source of the poem. Like Southey, Hardy uses a modified ballad stanza. As with the Blenheim poem, the narrator praises his commanding officer, who in his case was the Duke of York. Also like Kaspar in Southey’s poem, the soldier does not know the cause of the battle. Unlike Kaspar, however, he was present at the scene, and he describes the action vividly and conveys its human cost in acutely personal terms. He sustained a serious head wound and still suffers from the injury; he is haunted by memories of the battle. Nonetheless, he does not regret being there.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen (1920)
One of the English World War I poets, Wilfred Owen was killed in that war. This poem conveys an antiwar theme in a more gritty, horrifying way than Southey’s less disturbing satire. The title of the poem is a Latin phrase by the Roman writer Horace. The full phrase, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country) appears at the end of the poem but must be read in context. The poem describes a poison-gas attack, which Owen and his men endured. The poet then addresses “My friend” (Line 25), who was Jessie Pope, the author of many children’s books. The turn comes when he highlights the fallacy of the Latin phrase in the context of what he and his men went through:
[Y]ou would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory
The old Lie, Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori (Lines 25-28).
“After Blenheim by Robert Southey” by Stephen Lewis (2013)
This short essay discusses the historical context of the poem as well as Southey’s early radicalism and his later turn to conservatism. It also reproduces a painting by English artist William Mulready titled Old Kaspar (circa 1805-1806) that illustrates the poem. The painting shows a seated Kaspar talking to his two grandchildren. The skull is on his lap and he rests his right hand on it.
Listen to Poem
Daljit Nagra reads “The Battle of Blenheim” (here titled “After Blenheim”) by Robert Southey in a reading commissioned by the Poetry Archive.
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