Higgins analyses the English translation of some French war poems. He selects poems written by Pierre Seghers, Albert-Paul Granier, Jean Cayrol, Guillaume Appollinaire and Robert Brasillach, which have - like most French poetry of the two World Wars - largely been ignored in France since their publication. Higgins main conclusion lies in his description of the translator's task 1. to define the multiple relation of the poem to other variables in the expression of a reaction to war (a reaction which is perhaps by definition a moral one) and 2. to imitate this relation in conveying the reaction with an expressive force comparable to that of the source text.