This week we move somewhat away from the trenches to explore what the war was like in other aspects of combat, such as the aerial perspective Cecil Lewis’s memoir provides us. In light of this, we’ll try to focus on this shift in perspective by asking you all to chose at least one of the following prompts to respond to. 

1. How does the experience of the war from the air, as demonstrated by Sagittarius Rising, compare to what we’ve learned about the land and sea experiences of the war? Does this change how you think about combat in World War One? If so, how/why?

2. In Sagittarius Rising, Cecil Lewis is quite direct about the fact that he doesn’t remember many specific details or incidents from the First World War (see page 80), which is quite a contrast from a lot of the poetry we read last that was often composed during the war, or the other memoirs we’ve read which are based on the authors’ diaries and/or were written soon after the war ended. Does this fact change how we should think about or use this memoir as a historical source? How or how not? Do you think this calls into question how accurate Lewis’s account of the war is?

3. Does Sagittarius Rising subvert the traditional heroic or chivalric ideal of war in the same way that our poems from last week or Gabriel Chevallier’s Fear do? Choose and analyze one scene from Sagittarius Rising to explain your answer. 

4. Based on your reading of Lewis’s book, what do you think would have been the most daunting challenges of this very new form of fighting, aerial combat?  What were the characteristics of a successful pilot? 

REQUIRED BOOKS: double check questions for which books to use!

Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of AugustMichael Howard, 

The First World WarGabriel Chevallier, 

Fear: A Novel of World War I

Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth

Cecil Lewis, Sagittarius Rising

Louis Barthas, Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker 1914-1918

Robert Graves, Good-bye to All That

Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel