Compariosn of pre 1914 and Wilfred Owen’s poems Essay

By comparing and contrasting a selection of war metrical compositions, consider the counsels in which attitudes to war present been explored and expressed. When considering poetry compose post 1900 c oncentrate on a selection of poems write by Wilfred Owen.warf atomic number 18 has been an influential topic for poetry for some(prenominal) centuries and through its catastrophic cruelty and thought of patriotism has created some of the or so brilliant poets and most controversial poems ever written. With each contrary war comes different poets who postulate to write their views on it and just as motives of war differ, so do the opinions of the poets some see war as barbaric and destructive, whereas early(a)s submit it as a way of ennobling oneself. Before the technology and media cover middle-aged age we lead nowadaysa twenty-four hourss, stories of battle were passed round off by word of mouth and were often written in poetic form so they could be memorized easily.Jus t as the artillery used in the wars has changed, the way war is portrayed has as well. Before domain struggle 1 began in 1914, it was seen as a glorious opportunity for men to function and defend their country. In troopsy poems war is comp ared to a indorse, for example in Vitai Lampada written by enthalpy Newbolt, the refrain Play up Play up And play the game is repeated at the end of each stanza to try and rally the sol fleetrs and straightaway them for battle. Newbolt uses the leitmotif of comparing fighting to playing a cricket satisfy to ease the pressure off the sol overhaulrs by reservation it seem sport and competitive. He uses the simile Beat through liveliness bid a torch in flame to portray how the school male childs drive responsibilities and alike to guide how these must be passed down through the generations to protect their country, just the likes of the Olympic torch.War is excessively compared to a game in enthalpy Vs speech in Shakespeares play, Hen ry V. He declares The games afoot, once again understating the enormity of the battle. In increment Shakespeare uses the battle cry God for Harry, England and Saint George to show that the English are on the righteous side and possess a duty to serve their country.Before 1914, there was no compulsory military service and therefrom Britain did not have a huge regular ground forces like other European countries. However World War 1 was so large, tipple involve to be introduced, meaning all men of the appropriate age were obliged to go to war. Along with conscription came the propaganda to encourage men to junction up and a popular form was poetry. Poets like Jessie pontiff and Rupert Brooke wrote poems win over men that war would be an exciting opportunity with their friends and that it is their duty to celebrate and serve for England. However, one of the most renowned war poets, Wilfred Owen, had a different view of the war. At first he wrote in a alike way to the likes o f Pope and Brooke, just after experiencing first-hand action in the trend line his work became less idealistic.One of Owens most famous poems is Dulce et Decorum est. The Latin title means it is sweet and explosionting to die for your country and it is used ironically to anticipate an idealistic poem, alone it is kind of the opposite. Owen wrote this poem in reply to the jingoistic recruiting poems written by Jessie Pope they glorify war and make it seem like a corking opportunity for men to have an adventure with their friends. In the first devil lines of Dulce et Decorum est, Owen uses the vivid reckonry of old beggars and coughing like hags and the reviewer thinks that he is describing someone elderly or of low status. However, in the lines that follow, we visualize that Owen is actually talking about soldiers who are walking away from the foregoing lineTill on the haunting flares we turned our approvesAnd towards our distant residual began to trudge. Owen uses the w ord haunting to portray that the battle they have plump ford will confirmation in their minds forever. To convey the exhaustion of the men Owen uses hyperbole men marched sleepyheadeddrunk with fatigue. This shows how fighting was physically draining for the soldiers and contradicts the glamorous image that Popes poems conjure up.In the hour stanza Owen elaborates the terrifying characterization of a liquid attack. He repeats the word GAS for a second time in capital letters to convey a good sense of urgency and also to imply how fatigued the men were as they needed it to be repeated louder a second time for them to realise the situation. Owen uses syllabic words like ecstasy and fumbling and clumsy to convey a sense of panic and alarm. He differentiates how one man did not complicate his gas mask on in time and is floundring like a man in fire or lime.This portrays that the gas he is inhaling is burning and the image as under a commons sea, I saw him drowning is rattli ng powerful because it shows that the gas overwhelms his lungs just as water does when you drown. The line In all my dreams, before my helpless pile shows how Owen will think about that scene forever, and the word helpless suggests that he cannot do anything about the flashbacks and horrible memories he will have to endure but it also implies that he could not do anything to help the soldier who was dying. Owen uses the adjectives guttering, choking, drowning to illustrate the soldiers horrific death the word guttering is especially legal as you use it to advert a candle about to go out, just as the mans life is about to be extinguished.Owen mordantly attacks Jessie Pope in the buy the farm stanza. He sarcastically addresses her as my friend and uses gruesome comparisons like Obscene as cancer and bitter as the cud of vile to portray the horror of war. The line incurable sores on innocent tongues implies that the some soldiers who were really young will have terrifying memori es with them for the rest of their lives. He appeals to the senses by u uglinessg hideous and in writing(predicate) vision If you could fall upon, at every jolt, blood-Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs. The adjective froth-corrupted illustrates how the mans lungs had been plagued by the gas and what a horrific death he had to endure. He uses the simile like a devils sick of sin to describe the soldiers seem, suggesting a sense of repulsion and disgust. Owen depicts the soldiers as children ardent for some desperate glory portraying that Popes recruiting poems wrongly persuaded boys that were not of age to vulnerably serve their country. In the wear two lines Owen frames the poem by repeating the title, but he uses it ironically as he says it is The old Lie, contradicting other pre World War 1 poems that give the impression men will be considered grand if they serve their duty.Owen once again opposes the notion that women will treat soldiers, who surrender home from war injured, like heroes in his poem Disabled, Owen opposes the idea that women will treat the soldiers, who return from the war injured, like heroes. In the poem Fall In by Harold Begbie, he persuades men to join the army by using the sexual attractiveness of women. The lines When the girls line up in the street,Shouting their love to the lads come back, implies the men will be seen as courageous and gallant for fighting. However, Owen explains this is not the case in the linesNow he will never feel again how slim,Girls waists are, or how warm their keen hands,All of them touch him like some queer disease. The illustration like some queer disease expresses how the women are afraid he may be contagious and how they scrape up him repulsive.Just as in Dulce et Decorum est, at the beginning of the poem we think Owen is describing an elderly man because he uses the phrase ghastly suit of grey which interprets old age. but then we discover how he threw away his knees he chose to en list for the army and that is portrayed a grave mistake, a waste of his life. The line Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry also infers that the man opted to fight as the verb poured suggests that he did it himself. In addition, Owen portrays how the boy was not motivated by principles to sign up Someone had said hed look a immortal in kilts. He had been induced by vanity and also to interest his Meg once again the notion of impressing the women is used. Even though his face was younger than his youth the line Smiling they wrote his lie aged xix years, shows that the authorities were unscrupulous as they k radical he was just a boy but still let him sign up.Disabled is a very contrasting poem and Owen repeats the word now to emphasize the contrast amid what he was, and what he has now become Now he is old. Owen uses the motif of football game throughout, but not in the positive way Newbolt does in Vitai Lampada. He uses it ironically to show the difference between his life before the war when he was fit and agile, and now when he is condemned to a passive lifestyle in a wheelchair. When he was playing football he liked a blood smear down his leg, implying that he thought it looked manly and would impress the girls.Now however, he can yet watch boys playing football voices of play and pleasure after day and the women do not see him as heroic as their eyeball Passed from him to the bulletproof men that were whole. The word whole creates a strong image of him being limbless and is powerful as it is not very compassionate, just like the women. In the last two lines, Owen repeats the rhetorical head teacher Why dont they come? The first enquire is without delay addressing the nursing staff, portraying that they do not care for the wounded solider or are disgusted by his wounds and the second perplexity portrays a sense of abandonment he is confused because he fought in the war and lot should honour what he has done instead of pitying and d isposing of him.Owens rational Cases has a similar theme to Disabled except it focuses on the rational aspect of fighting and not the physical aspect. The purpose of this poem is to describe to the referee that the conditions were so terrible in the First World War that it drove people insane. The wraith of the poem is an angry one Owen portrays his resistivity to the war through line such as Multitudinous murders they once witnessed. The word multitudinous means the common people and shows how Owen thought that the run-of-the-mill people of Britain were being slaughtered and that young, fit men were the theme of untimely deaths. It also emphasises the great scaled of the murders and the eagerness of the war.Owen uses very powerful and vivid resourcefulness in the first stanza with phrases such as drooping tongues and purgatorial shadows to describe the men. The word purgatorial suggests that they are trying to cleanse their soul of the sins they have committed, but are tr apped by their own violent actions in the war. Owen uses the word shadows to portray them as ghosts, men that go unnoticed because they are insane and not normal. This is ironic because they were probably once very fit and able and are now spending their lives in an institute.The first stanza poses the question of what made the men mad and Owen uses rhetorical questions to engage the reader but what slow panic gouged these chasms round fretted sockets? This phrase conjours up a strong image of the men being wide eyed with a constant look of terror upon their face. Owen utilizes the phrase slow panic to infer that the men have been subject to a form of torture and that they have painfully been made to suffer. The phrase deeply gouged suggests wrinkles implying that the men are quite old however we learn that the men have not disjointed their minds due to age, but due to war. The lines Always they must see these things and hear them,Batter of guns and the shatter of flying muscles, use realistic and gruesome imagery to describe the battles. Onomatopoeia is used through the words shatter and batter making the reader almost hear the tremendous bangs of the guns and making them understand the intensity of the situation. The phrase human squander portrays Owens thoughts that many multitudinous murders took calculate and that their lives were lost for no reason it was a mistake.In the final stanza Owen describes to the reader how the mental cases wish they were dead so they did not have to remember the atrocious carnage that they have seen Dawn breaks open like a war that bleeds afresh. This simile is telling because usually dawn brings new beginnings and fresh opportunities, but to these men it just means they have to endure memories of what the war did to them. This poem is a very personal one as in the last four lines Owen uses words like us and chum salmon. This shows that the men blame us for allowing what happened to occur, and how they wish that they did not have to be reminded of it any longer.Wilfred Owens wrote Anthem for Doomed Youth not to portray the mental and physical effects of war like Disabled and rational Cases, but to explain how a whole generation of men were subject to gruesome injuries or brutal deaths during the First World War. The title is advisedly ironic because the word Anthem usually suggests celebration however the tone of this poem is bitter and mournful. It also infers that Owen is mocking poets like Rupert Brooke who say it is estimable to die in the war. The first line is a rhetorical question and it uses plosives, portraying an angry tone. The metaphor for these who die as cattle is effective because it infers that the soldiers are being slaughtered.The soldiers are referred to as Doomed Youth as there were no prayers nor bells for them as they died on the battlefield, just the monstrous crossness of the guns, suggesting that the amount of deaths were so widespread there was no separate sensation for each man, their deaths were unimportant like that of cattle. This personification also infers that the weapons were taking program line of the soldiers and that their actions are that of monsters. Owen portrays how there is no time for sentiment of the battlefield in the line The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells this personification is effective because when a person dies they are believed to be at peace, but when you die on the battlefield the destruction and devastation carries on around you regardless.Owen portrays how the men came from ordinary backgrounds in the phrase sad shires and he describes how the family of the soldiers did have funerals for them back at home in the line what candles may be held to swiftness them all? The devastation of their deaths is shown through the line the give wayor of girls brows shall be their pall suggesting that their girlfriends are sorrowful and also by using the plural it shows how a whole generation of women may not be able to find husbands because so many young men were killed in action. In the last line, a drawing-down of blinds is a appointee way to end the poem, but it could also be associated with traditional drawing down of blinds in a means where a dead person lies and furthermore it infers that so many soldiers lives were now over.I enjoyed reading Wilfred Owens poetry more than the pre 1900 poetry as it gave me a realistic view of what the effects of war were on the soldiers and their families. World War One was the most devastating and barbaric war to battle and therefore I believe that Owens poetry is more fitting as it gives a personal aspect to the poems, portraying the soldiers as humans, not just as statistics, but also showed them like animals to make the vast scale of the murders evident.