Essay Comparing Counter Attack and the Soldier

“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” Winston Churchill. As this quote shows, wars are often depicted as glorious moments in the history of our world and are celebrated throughout history, from the conquests of the Roman Empire to Napoleons domination of Europe. However, in A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, Joseph Plumb Martin shows from his perspective the Revolutionary War and creation of a new nation without romanticizing the situation. He shows realistically the daily hardships that soldiers had to face while fighting for their lives for their

Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front has a central theme of the harsh realities of war and a general negative attitude toward the subject. This attitude is synonymous of other war poems such as Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen and War Is Kind by Stephen Crane; however, the attitudes are revealed differently in all three pieces through each respective author’s use of diction, imagery, and tone.

However, the result of the War had produced some outstanding poets and Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) was a of the war poets who was widely regarded as one of the best poets of the World War One period. He wrote out of his intense personal experience and memory as a soldier and wrote with unrivalled power of the physical, moral and psychological trauma of the First World War . Heavily influenced by Keats and Shelly, a young Owen intrigued to become a poet began to absorb himself in poetry. He did not go into religious life like his mother. Instead, he left for Bordeaux, France to teach English in the Berlitz School after the war had erupted. Although he thought of himself as a `Pacifist', he enlisted in the Artist's Rifles in October 1915 and later in 1917 changed to France. There he began writing poems about his war experiences. Owen finally suffered from shell-shock in the summer of 1917 and was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital and met his friend Siegfried Sassoon, who shared his feelings about the war and who became interested in his work. Reading Sassoon's poems and discussing his work with Sassoon revolutionized Owen's style and conception of poetry .

Rupert Brooke, in his poem “Peace” addresses the value and honor of fighting in war. Brooke hopes to inform readers that war is a gift and that those who are able to fight should do so willingly, with great pride and honor. He adopts a passionate and serious tone in order to appeal to the feelings and experiences in his intended audience of young English males. Brooke challenges his intended audience by combatting their pessimistic beliefs of war.

For Brooke, war was a different experience. It was not that he did not recognize death and trauma, but it was that he perceived it in a different light. Brooke thought of dying for one’s country as honorable, admirable, and something of what a hero would do. Similar to a lot of what we see in modern pro-war propaganda, these descriptions are attributed with anyone who is willing to take on the “good fight for freedom”. It is possible that Brooke’s poems are filled with the patriotic beliefs that they are, purely due to pro-war propaganda, as the influence it has on people is remarkable and

The third chapter began to examine the contrasts between the American and British armies. The British Redcoats were very much prepared and experienced, not at all like the American army, and were being ordered by General William Howe, But dissimilar to in the American army were a solder could just climb in the positions taking into account their abilities on the war zone, British soldiers could pay to climb to higher ranks. A major misstep of the British army was that they disparaged the American soldiers so they thought it would be a simple win. Indeed, even their own particular general did not take the war as serious as he ought to have, investing more energy and time in relaxation exercises, for example, watching plays as opposed to conceiving

Since the emergence of written history, many fables regarding war have encompassed a significant portion of prosodic literature. Two of the foremost war poets of the 19th and 20th century—Emily Dickinson and Rupert Brooke—have both written about profound implications of war on society and also upon the human spirit albeit in two very different styles. The book, Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, theorizes through Allie, that Emily Dickinson was indubitably the superior war poet. Furthermore, when we analyze their works as well, we realize the invariable fact that Dickinson’s work delves into war with a much more holistic approach as well. She not only honours the soldiers for their valiant efforts, but also deftly weaves notions of liberty and civilian duty in regards to war as well as compared to Rupert Brooke who carried a romanticized imagery of martyrs within his poetry. In summation, Emily Dickinson is a superior war poet for her incisive analysis of death, and human nature in correspondence to war as compared to the patriotic salvos of Rupert Brooke’s poetry.

More often than not, war novels romanticize the soldier on the battle field as a heroic figure that would gladly die for his county’s honor. Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front”, paints a vividly different picture than one of a patriotic soldier willing to be at war. Remarque’s work masterfully shows that the soldier’s expectations of war could not be any further from society’s concept of warfare. “All Quiet on the Western Front” follows a young and innocent soldier, Paul Baumer, through the living Hell that is World War I. Through Paul’s character, Remarque’s antiwar novel demonstrates that war is nothing but, irrational, patriotic fueled violence that turns humans into insensible soldiers, while simultaneously indicating that their lives have no meaning.

The poem “Soldier” is Brooke’s views on the possible occurrence of his own death in the field and what he feels that foreign country would gain from his death. When viewing his own death Brooke only looks at the thoughts and ways England has provided him with in the course of his life. Towards the end of the poem as if looking at the end of his life he mentions that he feels no anger or feelings of evil or hate toward the enemy or anything else but instead recollects all the wonderful things about his country.

“Compare and contrast “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke with “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen with regard to theme, tone, imagery, diction, metre, etc”

The First World War changed a generation. The horrors of this mechanized conflict were so traumatic towards the so called and aptly named “lost generation” that it created a stark divide between them and previous generations. An example of this divide is in the poem They by Siegfried Sassoon. In this poem by Sassoon, himself a veteran of the trenches, we see a Bishop describing all of the “changes” that the boys who are going off to war will undergo. How they will fight bravely and valiantly by “lead the last attack on Anti-Christ”. These are then retorted by veterans of the war who list their injuries “For George lost both his legs; Bill’s stone blind poor Jim shot through the lung and like to die.” This poem illustrates the divide between

While both Alfred Lord Tennyson and Wilfred Owen describe war in great detail in their works “Charge of the Light Brigade” and “Dulce Et Decorum Est,” respectively, Tennyson describes the courage and honor of warfare, whereas Owen goes into more detail about the horrors and atrocities that go hand-in-hand with war. Tennyson describes a battle in which 600 bold and courageous men storm a valley, which he refers to as the “Valley of Death” (line 7), to meet their almost inevitable death. Owen in his “Dulce et Decorum Est,” describes a scene from World War I in which soldiers are bombarded with gas shells. In this essay I will argue that despite their differing subjects and themes, both Tennyson and Owen’s work prove that the honor and courage of the soldiers comes directly from the hardships they must endure.

Made me wonder does the soldier never dies or did he live. The main claim of this poem is war is a crime this proven by the quotes “And think heart, all evil shed away,”(Brooke). This proves that war is a crime by all the evil times of war is going to be gone because

In “The Soldier” an English soldier, more likely than not Brooke himself, is talking about if he were to be killed or die in battle on another foreign country’s land that “in that rich earth a richer dust concealed” (Brooke 1275). This means that the foreign land that that soldier died on is better because he died there for his country, for Great Britain. Brooke talks about how the dead soldier’s body is better simply because he was an Englishman, that his “dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware” (Brooke 1275). This means he was molded to perfection and with precision as an English soldier. This was nationalism at its finest for pre-war or pre fighting soldiers thinking it will be a cakewalk to be a soldier and to fight for one’s country would be the right and just thing to do. The soldier in Brooke’s piece is so prideful of England that he is willing to give his own life simply because he believes in the ideals of Great Britain

“The Soldier” is a poem about a generic, yet ideal soldier, which is indicated by Rupert Brooke’s use of the word “The” instead of “A” when describing the soldier in the title. The usage of “I” and “me” in the poem suggests a first person point of view, which makes the poem more personal and realistic to the reader. This poem is a sonnet because the first stanza contains eight lines and the second stanza contains six. Throughout “The Soldier,” the repetition of “English” and “England” shows how important his homeland is to the soldier and his high level of patriotism. In line five, England is personified, and although England is not a living thing, the soldier sees his country as his creator and as a sort of mother figure. Brooke’s use of alliteration throughout the poem helps it flow; the use of caesura breaks up the lines. Perfect external rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter are used throughout the poem, which both give the poem flow and rhythm. The “dust” in lines four and five is a metaphor for the soldier’s life; England created him and he will become “dust concealed” when he dies and is buried. The first stanza of “The Soldier” uses various lines of imagery: “some corner of a foreign field… In that rich earth a richer dust concealed… flowers… Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.” These forms of imagery emphasize the soldier’s death and how his death will cleanse him of any wrongdoings he had done in his time on earth. The “rivers” and “suns” are personified as