How Does Edward Thomas Explore Ideas About Loss in the Sun Used to Shine

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How does Edward Thomas explore ideas about loss in The Sun Used To Shine? In The Sun Used To Shine, Thomas remembers the Summer of 1914, shortly before the First World War began, when his good friend and fellow poet Robert Frost came to stay. The poem recounts the walks the two of them used to take through the countryside, and through this explores themes of loss and the effects of war. Thomas writes that “the sun used to shine while we two walked”, with the words “used to” implying that the sun no longer shines for Edward Thomas. This is possibly a metaphor for Thomas’ happiness or their friendship, suggesting that Thomas is no longer happy now that he and Frost can no longer walk together. A similar idea is explored in Gone, Gone Again, written shortly after The Sun Used To Shine, where Thomas writes that there is “not one pane to reflect the sun”, once again possibly using the sun as a metaphor for happiness. Thomas’ use of the past participle also suggests something about his ideas on loss. All the verbs in the first five stanzas of the poem end in ‘-ed’, making it appear that all the things Thomas writes about are firmly rooted in the past, with no elements of them in the present. One of the major themes of loss in the poem is the loss of friendship and intimacy. The reader is given the impression that the war has caused Frost and Thomas to grow apart, with Frost heading to the United States, and Thomas instead opting to enlist. This impression is given through the fact that the war seems to gradually become more significant as the poem goes on. Thomas writes that their conversation “turned from men or poetry to rumours of the war remote”, but that both he and Frost “stood disinclined” to discussing this. The word “remote” also suggests that the war is far off at the moment, in the third stanza, but as the poem goes on, the war seems to come closer and have

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