Edwardian age

When Queen Victoria died, in 1901, her son Edward VII took the crown. This period took his name because saw significant changes in society, including the rise of socialism. He was able to policy negotiations. He did an agreement called Entente Cordiale with France, where the Britain could expand in some colonies. He also founded the Order of Merit to reward those who distinguished in sciences, art or literature. The government adopted the politic of Liberalism with national insurance and pensions for old persons. This period was also a time of industrial shake, strikes and violence. The women founded the Women's Social and Political Union, they wanted women to have vote and soon they won their "battle". When Edward VII died was succeeded by his son George V; the other son, Albert, died in 1882. In 1914 he first War World burst. The war bust because the Austrian Archduke was assassinated in Sarajevo and because Germany marched through Belgium (neutral territory) for attacking France. Europe was divided into two parts: The Triple alliance with Germany, Austria, Italy and The Triple Entente with Britain, France, Russia.
In the field of literature we can divided:
The field of poetry: there is a list of important poets, the well known are the War poets because they denounced and depicted the War and the horror of the trenches (Owen, Rupert Brooke)
The field of novel: there was a stream of thoughts (the phsicanalysis of freud, new scientific development).

The war poets

They lived in the mubble, a group of men who fought in the trenches during the First World War. Common features: they all took part in the war as soldiers, they all enrolled enthusiastically when war broke out, they describe war as a terrible experience leading to death and suffering. The key figures of British war poetry were: Owen, Sassoon, Rupert Brooke and Rosenberg.
The Georgian poets: Georgian collection of poems thanks to the king George . Their idea are reconnected to the ideas of the victorian society. (romantic ideals of nature as Petrarca).
The Imagism: borne thanks to the American poets (Ezra Pound) the features: blank verse, importance of words and sounds.
Symbolist: movement that was born in France with Baudelaire.

Important events around the period of the First World War

The suffragettes: The word "suffragette" was first used to describe women campaigning for the right to vote in an article in a British newspaper in 1906. At the time of Falling Angels, two-thirds of the male population could vote. Those who could not included:
- men who did not own property or pay at least £10/year in rent
- servants who lived with their employers
- criminals
- lunatics
Although British women and men had been arguing for both universal and women’s suffrage since the 1860s, the movement for women’s votes accelerated when Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. In 1906 a Liberal government was elected to Parliament for the first time, with first Henry Campbell-Bannerman and then, in 1908, Herbert Henry Asquith as Prime Minister. Suffragettes were very hopeful that the Liberals would support them as promised in many candidates’ election campaigns.

The Easter rising or Irish question: The Easter Rising was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the aim of establishing an independent Irish Republic while the United Kingdom was fighting the First World War.

The Remembrance Day

The first world war ended in 11/11/1918 with the so called Armisticy, called after the Poppy day or Remembrance day, it became a symbol for all the man died in the war. For the unknown soldier and everybody stopped for one minute for staying in silence in Westminster at eleven o’clock.
The remembrance day is a day where they reflect on those who went before them, and the U.S. honors its veterans every year on November 11th. Canada and the other nations of the Commonwealth observe a different but similar holiday: Remembrance Day. “The intent behind Remembrance Day is not to glorify war. It's to reflect upon those who paid the ultimate sacrifice,” Major Rick Cameron, the Deputy Military Advisor at Canada’s Mission to the UN, told that they need to remember what happened in the past, so they don't revert to those ways in the future.
The poppy was the first symbol of reborn, there where vast fields of red poppies instead of men.
In the month of November many people wear red paper poppies in honour of the fallen. The poppy was adopted as the flower of remembrance as it is mentioned in the poem In Flanders Fields, written by a Canadian military doctor, John McCrae, in May 1915.

The soldier

It’s told in first person, it seems he’s not afraid, his desire is to die in a foreign field for the honor to have fought for his country. At the end, he’s addressing to young friends as him.
The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD and it reminds to a Petrarch sonnet.
Some image referring to death: if I should die, richer dust, a pulse in the eternal minds.
Landscape: flowers to love, fresh air, the rivers and sun.
The last imagine: the English heaven, he desired he will be remembered as a guy death for his country.

Poems and novels have in common a sense of frustration and alienation, chaos after the World Wars.

Winston Churchil’s Speech

He was the prime minister during the world war two and was probably the most influential British politician of the 20th century. Besides being a political leader, was a prolific artist, writer and historian, in fact he won the noble price for literature. Churchill died in 1965 and was granted a state funeral by Queen Elizabeth II.
Churchill spoke to the house of commons as prime minister for the first time in 1940, the speech title is: blood, toil, tears and sweat. He warned the Parliament and the nation of the terrible sacrifices to be faced for defeating the Germany. The victory could be achieved through the unity of the nation.