In Flanders Fields

“In Flanders Fields” was written by Canadian poet and war medic John McCrae in 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres in World War I. One of McCrae’s close friends, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, had been killed in the fighting. Upon visiting his friend’s gravesite, McCrae was moved by the sight of the poppies growing on the newly-made graves for the fallen. He wrote “In Flanders Fields” shortly thereafter to commemorate those who had died in the battle. “In Flanders Fields” is a lyric poem written in the form of a 15-line rondeau, in which the voices of the dead contrast the beauties of life and nature with their fallen state. The poem serves as both a memorial for the fallen and a call-to-arms with the dead urging those still living to take up their cause and continue the fight.

The poem first appeared in print in Punch magazine in December 1915. It reached a wider audience in 1919 with the publication of McCrae’s collection In Flanders Fields and Other Poems. The poem has since become one of the most famous lyric poems of World War I with its most dominant symbol—the red poppy—still used as a symbol to commemorate Remembrance Day and veterans in many English-speaking countries. McCrae himself never lived to see his poem’s post-war legacy—he died on January 28th, 1918, during the final year of the war.

Poet Biography

John McCrae was born on November 30th, 1872 in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. His father, David, served as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Canadian military, as McCrae himself would later do. McCrae was educated at the local Guelph Collegiate Institute before moving to Toronto to attend the University of Toronto, where he completed his BA in two separate stints due to an interruption over health issues. While recovering, McCrae taught English and math back in Guelph before finally receiving his BA from the University of Toronto in 1894. He then stayed on at the university to study medicine, becoming a licensed physician in 1898. He worked at both the Toronto General Hospital and at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland, USA.

Apart from medicine, McCrae had two other passions: poetry and the military. He began to write poetry in his early teens, although he seems to have had no special interest in making a living from his writing. During his adolescence he participated in the Highfield Cadet Corps and in the early 1890s he went to Fort Frontenac in Kingston, Ontario, to train as an artilleryman. In 1900 he joined the Royal Canadian Artillery and fought in South Africa during the Second Boer War (1899-1902) for about a year before resigning in protest over the soldiers’ inadequate medical treatment. Upon his return, he spent the remaining years before World War I dividing his time between teaching and his own medical practice.

After World War I broke out in 1914, McCrae decided to return to the military once more, becoming an army medic in the Canadian Field Artillery. It was during the Second Battle of Ypres, in 1915, that McCrae wrote “In Flanders Fields” while serving on the front lines. The poem was inspired by the death of McCrae’s friend and fellow soldier, Alexis Helmer, who was killed in the fighting. The poem appeared in December of that year in Punch magazine. It was immediately popular with the public, which left McCrae surprised by the extent of his success.

McCrae soon took charge of a Canadian military hospital in Boulogne, France, where he continued to treat the wounded and dying. By 1917, however, McCrae’s own health had begun to worsen, with a resurgence of the asthma from his youth. He eventually died of bronchitis on January 28th, 1918, in the final year of the war and was buried in Wimereux Cemetery near Boulogne. He was 45 years old. His poetry collection, In Flanders Fields and Other Poems, was published posthumously in 1919, cementing the popularity of his most famous poem and transforming the red poppy into an enduring symbol of remembrance.

Poem Text

McCrae, John. “In Flanders Fields.” 1919. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

“In Flanders Fields” is a famous World War I lyric poem, commemorating the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. The poem opens with a description of the poppies growing upon the graves of the fallen soldiers with a first-person plural narration that enables the dead to speak from beyond the grave. In the first stanza, the dead contrast the tranquility of the larks flying overhead with the battle raging beneath on the land. The dead then reflect upon the transience and beauty of their lives, as they were still alive mere days ago, enjoying both the splendors of the natural world and the warmth of close relationships. Now, they are buried. In the poem’s closing stanza, the dead urge those still living to continue their fight, creating a continued bond and a sense of shared mission between the living and the dead. The dead warn the living that if the living fail in their duties to fight on, the dead will be unable to rest peacefully in Flanders Fields.