I thought the 50 years was referring to Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee - 50 years on the throne....1887. There were a lot of items produced to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Bibles are especially collected. 1896 is etched on my brain!!!! That was when they were published.1. It seems to provide a time-stamp for the collection. I guess I had had the impression that the era was WW I, but appartently not so.
2. Housman puts a fair amount of information into this poem, which is not easy to do while managing the rhymes. He establishes the 50th birthday of Queen Victoria; he introduces in st. 3 the soldiers who have died in foreign lands in order to save the Queen. In st. 7, he brings in the living members of regiment belting out "God Save the Queen." Three generations are joined in st. 8 in the noble attempt to save the Queen.
In the Victorian periodicals/magazines/newspapers which I am wont to read from time to time...I notice that there did seem to be a genuine affection for Queen Victoria...well she had been on the throne since she was 19 years old (I think!). The Government would have used her image to stir up the soldiers to fight (the rotten lot!.) You know how Shakespear's Henry V - used the 'St Crispins Day' speech to urge the men on to fight.....using their emotional response.
I don't think Housman is being ironic. We do have very fervent feelings - whipped up by imagery..... In this Country now, most people are not Royalists, but we do have a great affection for our Queen (well, most people). Still, the Falklands war springs to mind....the soldiers would not have gone there and fought - for the Queen or Mrs. Thatcher.....especially when we remember that Housman's troops would have been involved in man to man, face to face combat.....not just blowing up a 'faceless' ship.3. Question: Is this a full-on patriotic tribute or are we to see irony? Do the soldiers indeed assist God in saving the Queen? It might be something that I, 21st century American, will have trouble answering. I was always puzzled by God Save the Queen. It might take Penelope to straighten this out for me!
No, our press used - 'National Pride' to stir up the support for that war.
God Save the Queen - is such a morbid tune...I wish we had something more jolly!! Land of Hope and Glory is a wonderful tune and song....the fact that most people now sing 'Land of Dope and Tories'....and instead of Shakespear's 'This Sceptred Isle' they say 'This Sceptic Isle' just proves that we have become more synical. There were a lot of poets who wrote after WWI that we had lost our 'innocence' as a Nation, after the Great War they all felt we had lost something. Yeats wrote - 'The Wheel has lost its centre'. I don't think Housman was part of that
I am trying not to comment on my personal feelings. I am trying to be objective....