This is interesting:
John McCrae’s Flanders Fields is iconic. No more need be said. Unfortunately, its meaning has been distorted by the most popular voice and instrumental accompaniment. This new reading of the poem has transformed Flanders Fields‘ meaning. My guess is that this metamorphosis was unintentional, but one and all should work to recover the original public meaning.
Fascinating. A poem that’s only a 100 years old, that has been available in written form throughout, and already readings of it are distorting its meaning. Yet people ask me to believe “oral history’ that’s allegedly survived for many centuries.