Jessie Pope (1868 - 1941)["Minds at War'" the Poetry and Experience of the First world War', David Roberts, Saxon Books, 1996, ISBN 0952896907] was an English poet, writer and journalist best known for her patriotic motivational poems published during World War I.]Born in Leicester, she was educated at Craven House, Leicester, and North London Collegiate School. She was a regular contributor to "Punch", "The Daily Mail" and "The Daily Express",[ also writing for "Vanity Fair", ["Songs of Good Fighting", Eugene Richard White & Harry Persons Taber, Elkin Mathews, 1908] Pall Mall Magazine [Reviews and magazines, "The Times", December 1, 1910] and the "Windsor", [Reviews and magazines, "The Times", May 1, 1912] ]A lesser-known literary contribution was Pope's discovery of Robert Noonan's novel "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists", when his daughter mentioned the manuscript to her after his death. Pope recommended it to her publisher, who commissioned her to abridge it before publication. This, a partial bowdlerization, moulded it to a standard working-class tragedy while greatly downgrading its socialist political content.["The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists", Robert Tressett, introduction by Peter Miles, Oxford World's Classics, OUP, 2005, [http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=X61AJIJNAQ8C&pg=PR10&ots=oWiLzlG--W&dq=%22Jessie+Pope%22&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html&sig=Q6iZjY2kPG_2tuDa8A8jLplxELA Google Books] ] ]Other works include "Paper Pellets" (1907), an anthology of humorous verse. [ [http://www.archive.org/details/paperpelletshumo00popeiala "Paper Pellets"] , Internet Archive] She also wrote verses for children's books,[ such as "The Cat Scouts" (Blackie, 1912) and the following eulogy to her friend, Bertram Fletcher Robinson (published in the "Daily Express" on Saturday 26th January 1907):] Good Bye, kind heart; our benisons preceding,
Shall shield your passing to the other side.
The praise of your friends shall do your pleading
In love and gratitude and tender pride.
To you gay humorist and polished writer,
We will not speak of tears or startled pain.
You made our London merrier and brighter,
God bless you, then, until we meet again!
War poetry
Pope's war poetry, now perceived as jingoistic, [Jon Stallworthy "Owen, Wilfred (Edward Salter)", "The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English", Ian Hamilton, Oxford University Press, 1996.] ["Women's Poetry of the First World War", Nosheen Khan, University Press ofKentucky, 1988, ISBN 0813116775] was originally published in "The Daily Mail" and focused on encouraging recruitment. "Who's for the Game?" is typical in style:
Who’s for the game, the biggest that’s played,
The red crashing game of a fight?
Who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid?
And who thinks he’d rather sit tight?
Other poems, such as "The Call" (1915) [ [http://www2.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/20century/topic_1_05/jpope_call.htm "The Call"] , Norton Anthology of English Literature] - "Who’s for the trench — Are you, my laddie?" - expressed similar sentiments. Pope was widely published during the war, apart from newspaper publication producing three volumes: "Jessie Pope's War Poems" (1915), "More War Poems" (1915) and "Simple Rhymes for Stirring Times" (1916). ["The Works of Wilfred Owen", Wilfred Owen, ed. Douglas Kerr, Wordsworth Editions, 1994, ISBN 1853264237]
Her treatment of the subject is markedly in contrast to the anti-war stance of soldier poets such as Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, the latter in particular finding her work distasteful. His poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" was a direct response to her writing, originally dedicated "To Jessie Pope". A later draft amended this to "To a certain Poetess". ["The Old Lie: The Great War and the Public-school Ethos", Peter Parker, Constable, 1987]
References
External links
* [http://www.archive.org/details/jessiepopeswarpo00popeiala "Jessie Pope's War Poems"] , Internet Archive
* at WikiSource
* [http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/images/mss/oefl/FascS/f316r.jpgDulce et Decorum est] , document f316r, Wilfrid Owen Multimedia Digital Archive
* [http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/images/mss/oefl/FascS/f318r.jpgDulce et Decorum est] , document f318r, Wilfrid Owen Multimedia Digital Archive
