Anthem for Doomed Youth

Writers and Literature of The Great War, 1914-1918

Table of Equivalents

In his seminal work, The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell exaplains:

The language is that which two generations of readers had been accustomed to associate with the quiet action of personal control and Christian self-abnegation ("sacrifice"), as well as With more violent actions of aggression and defense. The tutors in this special diction had been the boys' books of George Alfred Henty; the male-romances of Rider, Haggard; the poems of Robert Bridges; and especially the Arthurian poems of Tennyson and the pseudo-medieval romances of William Morris. We can set out this "raised," essentially feudal language in a table of equivalents:

A friend is a
comrade
Friendship is
comradeship, or fellowship
A horse is a
steed, or charger
The enemy is
the foe, or the host
Danger is
peril
To conquer is to
vanquish
To attack is to
assail
To be earnestly brave is to be
gallant
To be chearfully brave is to be
plucky
To be stodily brave is to be
staunch
Bravery considered after the fact is
valor
The dead on the battlefield are
the fallen
To be nobly enthusiastic is to be
ardent
To be unpretentiuosly enthusiastic is to be
keen
The front is
the field
Obedient soliders are
the brave
Warfare is
strife
Actions are
deeds
To die is to
perish
To show cowardice is to
swerve
The draft-notice is
the summons
To enlist is to
join the colors
Cowardice results in
dishonor
Not to complain is to be
manly
To move quickly is to be
swift
Nothing is
naught
Nothing but is
naught, save
To win is to
conquer
One’s chest is one’s
breast
Sleep is
slumber
The objective of an attack is
the goal
A soldier is a
warrior
One’s death is one’s
fate
The sky is
the heavens
Things that glow or shine are
radiant
The army as a whole is
the legion
What is contemptible is
base
The legs and arms of young men are
limbs
Dead bodies constitute
ashes, or dust
The blood of young men is
"the red/Sweet wine of youth" -R. Brooke
This system of "high" diction was not the least of the ultimate casualties of the war. But its staying power astonishing. As late as 1918 it was still posssible for some men who had actually fought to sustain the old rhetoric.

(Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, 21-23)