Introduction

"In Flanders Fields" was one of the most famous and popular poems of the First World War. It was initially published anonymously in Punch magazine on December 6, 1915, though it was later revealed to have been written by John McCrae, a Canadian doctor and military officer. The piece begins by constructing contrasts between the violence and death of war and the natural beauty that persists despite battle; this contrast occurs most famously in the image of poppies growing over the graves of dead soldiers, but is also evident in the image of the lark (a songbird) in the sky above the trenches. The poem goes on to ask the reader to honor the dead and the sacrifices they have made by continuing the struggle. The poem was republished in 1919 as part of...