Introduction to A Burnt Ship

     

                    A consequence of studying 20th century war poetry was that it  stimulated my new interest in seventeenth century poetry. And from that 'A Burnt Ship' blog was born.  An earlier version of this first article was published on the Great War at Sea Poetry blog.

If anyone who is looking for World War 2 poetry , feel free to visit the  World War 2 Poetry blog.

If anyone is interested in 20th century War at Sea poetry, feel free to visit the Great War at Sea Poetry blog


                                                      John Donne 

                                         Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom 'Battle between England and Spain 
                                                      1601-[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
                       


                               The Burnt Ship 

Fighting at sea can be particularly ferocious, simply because there is so little chance to retreat let alone desert ; as the medieval chronicler Froissart observed  concerning the 1340 Battle of Sluys;

“It was indeed a bloody and murderous battle. Sea-fights are always fiercer than fights on land, because retreat and flight are impossible. Every man is obliged to hazard his life and hope for success, relying on his own personal bravery and skill.”

In other words there a combatant who loses his nerve during a sea battle  can't play dead, hide under a pile of corpses or in a fox hole, abandon the battlefield. The sea will not offer sanctuary.

'A Burnt Ship ' -John Donne

Out of a fired ship, which by no way

But drowning could be rescued from the flame,

Some men leap'd forth, and ever as they came

Near the foes' ships, did by their shot decay;

So all were lost, which in the ship were found,

They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drown'd.

John Donne ( 1572- 1631) was one of the few British poets to have been to sea, and one of even fewer poets to have experienced warfare at sea- he joined the notorious 1596 expedition to Cadiz led by Sir Robert Devereux the Earl of Essex .The town was sacked and some prize galleons set on fire. John Donne was with a fleet that sailed for the Azores in 1597, but a storm drove them back to Plymouth. A second sailing was more successful,

What is fascinating is about this epigram is that the sea is neutral . All the action concerns human conflict, the only hint of how menacing the sea can be is in the last line  they in the burnt ship drown'd. The claustrophobia of being trapped between fire and water is a constant theme in War at Sea poetry. Looking at Alan Ross writing during his time on Arctic convoy PW51b as a rating on board HMS Onslow at the battle of Baring Sea on 30th December 1942 , using a hose to tackle a fire beneath desks whilst sea water is also leaking in ( from the poem 'PW51b".)

"So Onslow rejoined in falling darkness.
Having aided the elements cancellation
Of each other; fire and water"

John Donne wrote a large amount of love poetry, and also as Dean of St. Paul's , became renowned for the quality of his sermons. The theme of the sea returned to his work.

                         

'The Calm' - John Donne

…………………….

Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves, or us;

In calms, Heaven laughs to see us languish thus.

As steady'as I can wish that my thoughts were,

Smooth as thy mistress' glass, or what shines there,

……..

The sense of  man’s  helplessness is conveyed so well. The sea is part of a elemental world which is largely indifferent to the fate of humanity. John Donne himself was on a ship that was becalmed in September 1597. Not surprisingly , ‘The Calm’ ends with a sense of late 20th century existential angst.

“Fate grudges us all, and doth subtly lay

A scourge, 'gainst which we all forget to pray.”

And

“ Is man now, than before he was? He was

Nothing; for us, we are for nothing fit;

Chance, or ourselves, still disproportion it.

We have no power, no will, no sense; I lie”

          In the world of sail, ships rely on wind to navigate. The sense of human vulnerability is even stronger, As well as current and storms, the risk of being stranded if the winds simply do not move is great. Or if sails and rigging are destroyed in battle.Supplies of fresh water and of food can be limited. ‘The Calm ‘ is one of the strongest poems to convey this feeling of helplessness, of being at the mercy of nature.

Yes the next step in seventeenth century 'war at sea' poetry was to proclaim that the sea could owned by man, and the sovereign -most notably Charles II -could somehow master the sea. The notion that the King should have natural -perhaps supernatural -authority was inferred. An extra challenge was that whilst during the Commonwealth large swathe of the Navy had defected to the Royalists in exile, the Commonwealth admirals, particularly Robert Blake had proved to be successful during the Anglo-Dutch War of 1652-54 .

Edmund Waller wrote a poem in honour of Cromwell " A Panegyric To My Lord Protector, of the Present Greatness, And Joint Interest , of His Highness And This Nation' , which emphasised the Commonwealth superiority at sea.

(verse 3)

Above the waves as Neptune show'd his face,
To chide the winds, and save the Trojan race,
So has your highness, raised above the rest,
Storms of ambition, tossing us, repress'd.

(verse 5 )

The seas our own; and now all nations greet,
With bending sails, each vessel of our fleet;
Your power extends as far as winds can blow,
Or swelling sails upon the globe may go.

(verse 9)

Fame, swifter than your winged navy,flies
Through every land that near the ocean lies'
Sounding your name, and telling dreadful news
To all that piracy and rapine use.

A standard had been set for the Restoration. The growth in naval rivalry between the Cromwellian regime and the Dutch Seven Provinces was going to be the subject of further poetry.  Yes the same era saw the appearance of  John Milton's magnificent 'Paradise Lost' ; and in Book 1 of this work we are reminded that the sea is the dwelling place of

........  that sea beast 
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th'Oceanstream
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam

(Book 1; lines 200-204)

And Dagon

" ..........Sea Monster upward Man
And downward fish......"

(Book 1 ; lines 462-3)

The dynamic between the notion that the Sea could be ruled by one country countered against the idea of the Sea as a chaotic force began to emerge.