The Poem "In Memoriam H.W.G." as a Symbol in In Memoriam

What Is the Poem "In Memoriam H.W.G."?

The poem "In Memoriam H.W.G." is a fictional elegy written by Sidney Ellwood and published in The Preshutian (the school newspaper of Preshute College) after he believes his best friend Henry Gaunt has been killed in the First World War. The title echoes Alfred Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H., a long elegy for a beloved friend, signalling that Ellwood’s poem is a personal lament for Gaunt. Within Alice Winn’s novel, the poem exists as a textual object that circulates beyond its author: Gaunt, who is actually alive in a German POW camp, discovers it in a copy of the New Statesman smuggled in a Red Cross box. This moment catapults the poem from a private expression of grief into a public testament that reaches its intended subject across the battlefield.

Although the full text of Ellwood’s poem never appears in the novel, its presence is felt through its title and its impact on the characters. It is a distillation of Ellwood’s love for Gaunt, written under the assumption of his death, and it carries all the weight of unspoken desire and wartime loss.

Where the Poem Appears in the Novel

The poem is first foreshadowed in Chapter Ten. During a tense night before an assault, Gaunt asks Ellwood directly: “Will you write about me when I die, Elly?” When Ellwood replies that he might call it “In Memoriam H.W.G.?”, Gaunt makes a sound “between laughter and choking,” recognising the intimacy of the gesture. This early conversation establishes the poem as a hypothetical act of remembrance, something Ellwood would only compose if Gaunt were dead.

The poem resurfaces much later, in Chapter Twenty-one. While imprisoned at the Holzminden camp, Gaunt receives a care package from the Red Cross. His fellow prisoner Archie Pritchard finds a copy of the New Statesman containing a poem by Ellwood. The title—“In Memoriam H.W.G.”—leaves no doubt about the subject. Gaunt learns that everyone at Preshute believes he is dead, and that Ellwood has memorialised him in verse. This discovery transforms the poem from a private possibility into a concrete, published artefact that ignites Gaunt’s determination to escape.

The poem does not appear again physically, but its emotional resonance continues to shape Gaunt’s choices in the final chapters. In Chapter Forty-six, when Gaunt and Ellwood are reunited in Brazil, the poem is never mentioned aloud—but its creation and reception have already altered both men’s understanding of their bond.

How the Poem’s Meaning Shifts

The poem undergoes a profound shift in meaning as the novel progresses. When Ellwood first jokingly suggests the title in Chapter Ten, it is a tender yet painful promise, spoken in the shadow of an imminent battle. At this point, the poem represents Ellwood’s willingness to immortalise Gaunt through art, a public declaration of love that can only be made after death. It is also a source of dark humour between them (“Maybe I’ll just change your name to Maud and be done with it”), masking deeper fear.

After Gaunt reads the published poem in the prison camp, its meaning multiplies. For Gaunt, it is proof that Ellwood loves him—and that Ellwood believes him dead. The poem becomes a jolt of motivation; Gaunt realises he must survive not only for himself but to prove the elegy wrong. It drives him to rejoin the tunnelling efforts despite his crippling claustrophobia and panic attacks. As Chapter Twenty-one states, “This revelation motivated Gaunt to join the tunnelling efforts, pumping bellows despite physical pain.” The poem transforms from a memorial into a call to action.

For the wider Preshute community, the poem functions as a conventional wartime elegy, honouring a fallen hero. For the reader, it underscores the irony of the situation: Gaunt reads his own epitaph while still alive. The poem thus becomes a symbol of how writing can both preserve and distort truth, offering consolation to the living while potentially misrepresenting the dead.

Character Connections

The poem is central to the relationship between Sidney Ellwood and Henry Gaunt. Ellwood writes it because Gaunt is the person he loves most; the act of composing and publishing the elegy is the closest Ellwood can come to a public acknowledgement of his feelings. Gaunt, upon reading it, understands the depth of Ellwood’s devotion. The poem bridges the massive distance between them—geographically, emotionally, and in terms of presumed death.

For Archie Pritchard, who discovers the poem and shows it to Gaunt, the elegy serves as a catalyst for his role as a caretaker and confidant. Pritchard recognises the poem’s significance and uses it to bolster Gaunt’s spirits.

The poem also indirectly involves Maud Gaunt, Henry’s sister. She later works in Berlin to abolish Paragraph 175, the law criminalising homosexuality. The poem, as a coded expression of homosexual love, becomes part of a larger context of forbidden desire that Maud’s activism seeks to liberate.

Theme Connections

The poem is a nexus for several major themes in the novel:

• Forbidden Homosexual Love in Wartime: The elegy allows Ellwood to express his love for Gaunt publicly but only under the guise of mourning a comrade. It is a safe literary form for an otherwise unspeakable emotion.
• Psychological Trauma and Shell Shock: Gaunt’s reaction to reading the poem is not purely romantic; it occurs amid severe trauma, and the discovery spurs him to overcome his debilitating panic attacks. The poem becomes a therapeutic tool, though not in a conventional sense.
• Masculinity and Vulnerability: Writing an elegy for a friend exposes Ellwood’s vulnerability. Publishing it risks sentimentality, which he normally avoids. The poem reveals a crack in the stoic masculinity imposed by public-school and army culture.
• Escape and Survival: The poem directly motivates Gaunt’s escape efforts. It transforms the tunnel, already a symbol of physical escape, into a symbol of emotional reclamation. Gaunt must escape not just the camp but also the false narrative of his death.
• Memory and Poetry as Consolation: The poem embodies the power of poetry to console the living and to memorialise the dead. Yet Winn complicates this by having the “dead” person read his own memorial, questioning whether poetry offers true comfort or merely a comforting fiction.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Ellwood choose the title “In Memoriam H.W.G.” rather than something more personal or direct?
   Answer: The title directly references Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H., a celebrated elegy for a close male friend. By imitating this form, Ellwood can express deep love and grief without explicitly naming it as romantic. It also adheres to the conventions of wartime memorials, allowing the poem to be published in The Preshutian without raising suspicion about the nature of Ellwood’s feelings. The initials “H.W.G.” protect Gaunt’s identity from outsiders while signalling to those who know him—including Gaunt himself—that the poem is for him.

2. How does Gaunt’s discovery of the poem change his behaviour in the prisoner-of-war camp?
   Answer: Before reading the poem, Gaunt is plagued by nightmares, panic attacks, and feelings of cowardice. He has been excluded from the tunnelling because his claustrophobia triggers episodes. After Pritchard shows him the poem, Gaunt becomes determined to escape. He volunteers to pump bellows for the tunnel, enduring physical pain, and later seduces the Kommandant’s secretary to obtain forged papers. The poem makes him feel “alive” in a way he hasn’t since his capture; it gives him a reason to survive beyond mere duty.

3. In what ways does the poem function as a symbol of both love and miscommunication?
   Answer: The poem is born from love: Ellwood writes it because he cannot bear the thought of Gaunt dying unremembered. But it is also a miscommunication because Gaunt is not dead. Ellwood’s grief is premature, and his published elegy circulates a falsehood. When Gaunt reads it, he understands Ellwood’s love, but he also recognises that their separation—compounded by the chaos of war—has allowed a cruel misunderstanding. The poem thus represents how love can be real even when its foundations are mistaken.

4. Compare the role of this poem to the role of the “In Memoriam” lists that appear in Chapter One. How do they differ in their effect on the characters?
   Answer: The “In Memoriam” lists at the start of the novel are impersonal death notices, recording names of former students killed in action. They evoke a collective horror and numb grief. Ellwood and Gaunt read them with dread but without the intimate anguish of personal loss. In contrast, Ellwood’s poem “In Memoriam H.W.G.” is a single, focused elegy for one person, written by someone who loves him. It personalises death, turns a statistic into a story, and—ironically—revives its subject. The lists bury; the poem resurrects. The poem also reaches the living Gaunt, whereas the lists only address the living indirectly.