[lit-ideas] Re: Unknown Warrior
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 15:40:11 -0800
on 11/11/04 9:56 AM, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx at Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx wrote:
> From a site, some notes, below. I see there are a couple of 'puns' on this,
> on the inscription itself:
>
> "unknown and yet well-known", "The Lord knoweth them that are his", etc.
>
> Apparently, Railton's idea to 'officialise' this came from his seeing a
> penciled grafitto in a back garden of Armentierses (of Parley Voo fame): "an
> unknown British soldier". Oddly, they changed that to the more Germanic (?),
> Boewulfian word, 'warrior.
I mused idly about Anglo-French rivalry over who thought up the notion of
the unknown warrior. Jay Winter cites a French source for his date--1920--
on the Arc de Triomphe memorial; this website says that the British memorial
predated the French one by a year. (It also contradicts Winter's statement
that there is no such memorial in Germany; it lists a site in Berlin.)
>
http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/t/to/tomb_of_the_unknown_sold
ier.html
I can't reconcile the conflicting evidence; other sources I own are of no
further help.
I haven't any sense of how the French proceeded beyond scenes that I believe
I remember seeing in Bernard Tavernier's, "La Vie et Rien d'Autre." (I
write, "I believe I remember" because I have on occasion had strong
"memories" of scenes that were not, in fact, in a particular film; they were
embroideries.)
I found the reference to burying a crusader's sword with the body both
awful--what a waste of a good sword; what sense will the future make of
this--and enlightening. I have long wondered about the shape of swords on
First World War memorials. Now I know.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
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