Variations on the Theme of Loss in American Poetry of the Second World War

Why isn\u27t the American poetry of the Second World War well known? The answer may be found in the poetry. Our victory in the war is perceived as an event of national ascendancy. However, the poetry of the war is rarely nationalistic. John Peale Bishop wrote of Hemingway: in searching the meaning of his own unsought experience, he comes on the moral history of his time (Eisinger 2). This statement can be applied to many of the American poets of the Second World War. Rather than chronicling the events of the war, their poetry is introspective. And it often expresses pain and sadness and loss. This moral history may be more than most Americans want to know about the Second World War -- or any war