First World War Poetry Essay

Even a century long time after his death, Wilfred Owen is still famous for his war poetry written during World War 1. In his poems, Owen uses various language techniques to vividly illustrate the horrendous reality of war. Hence, he communicates his own anti-war feelings, that are embedded beneath his techniques. However, although he is now known as an anti-war poet, for once, he had been a naive boy, who had been pressured by the propaganda and volunteered to fight in war.

The Soldier is one of numerous poems written at the beginning of war (before ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’) to attract naive young men who believed enrolling in war would be an exciting adventure allowing them to travel the world. Brooke welcomes death in his sonnet and expresses that he feels privileged to have been raised in England, believing it was a blessing.

Comparing War Poems Died of Wounds and Suicide in the Trenches are two poems, which I will be comparing the similarities and differences, which were written by the same author. Both these poems were written by a person called Siegfried Sasson, who wrote most of his poems during the World War One, which outlined how bad the war was to those at home after suffering from being Shell Shocked. I will be comparing the language it uses, ideas it contains and the way it is structured between both poems, which Siegfried Sasson uses to demonstrate that war is evil, and should be stopped. The theme in Died of Wounds is that soldiers become shell-shocked and go insane.

The Universal Soldier is less of a man or human and more so the idea of every soldier combined as well as the perspective war personified. Throughout the song, the Universal Soldier is referred to as “him” and the songs depict what he is and what he does. The lines 1 and 4 are both representative of the height and age parameters for soldiers in 1961, which supports the idea that he represents all soldiers in war. The lines 22-24 depict him as the armies both Hitler and Caesar have; without both of their armies, they could not have accomplished what they did.

Wilfred Owen can be considered as one of the finest war poets of all times. His war poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, use a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathise with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. The sonnet form, para-rhymes, ironic titles, voice, and various imagery used by Owen grasp the prominent central idea of the complete futility of war as well as explore underlying themes such as the massive waste of young lives, the horrors of war, the hopelessness of war and the loss of religion. These can be seen in the three poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and

World War One poets Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen both use poetry to examine their differing perspectives surrounding the idea of heroism in war. Brooke’s The Soldier depicts an idealistic, patriotic view towards fighting for his country, whereas Owen’s Dulce et Decorum est demonstrates a realistic view of the senseless horrors of war. Both poets utilise similar poetic techniques of imagery and sound devices to express their contradictory views of the atrocious events of the greatest war that the world had ever seen at that time.

Throughout the several poems Wilfred Owen wrote throughout his experience during the First World War, he explores many themes in relation to the war and the emotions associated with these. One of the most prevalent ideas Wilfred Owen chooses to emphasise in many of his poems is that of the sense of horror associated with war and all the consequences of it such as those including death, disability, pain and gore and this emphasis can be clearly seen in 2 of Wilfred Owens most famous poems: Dulce Et Decorum Est and Mental Cases.

Wilfred Owen wrote about the suffering and pity of war from his first -hand experience at the Somme. He was appalled by the overwhelming and senseless waste of life, the “human squander” and detailed its devastating effects on young men. In both ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Mental Cases’ he writes with intense focus on war as anextraordinary human experience. The poems also document other experiences, the living hell of shell-shock in ‘Mental Cases’ and a cruel and grotesque death from mustard gas in

Just by reading the title, we know that this poem is about World War II. The first stanza talks about high school kids “training for war.” Hall is comparing a school sport to fighting in the war which, to me, is a bit of an exaggeration. You are not very likely to get badly hurt playing a sport and, if you do, you can usually come back from it fairly well. In war, it is extremely easy to become injured, and most war injuries can cause you to lose your life. We see an example of this in Stanza II when Dom dies in battle. During WWII, the military drafted young men to fight in the war. Dom was just a kid, sent off to fight in the war, and died not even a year after being one of the high schoolers playing sports. His life had barely started before

Life in the trenches during WWI was miserable. There seem to be no words that could truly match the horrific experience, but soldiers tried to conjure images using literature to come close to their experience. As stated in The World’s History, Europe had not warfare on such a scale since the Napoleonic wars (Spodek 664). Even watching the American Civil War from afar could not have prepared Europe and the young men that served for the devastation WWI brought. The poems described the war as a collection of numbed men, simply waiting to die, “lines of grey, muttering faces.” Men who had joined to serve their country had now become disillusioned with the nobility of dying for their country, wondering if the suffering both in and out of the trenches

Throughout history, poetry was often used in conflict with glorified or ambiguous images of war being presented to the people at home, revealing the truth and brutality of war. Bruce Dawe, Kenneth Slessor, Carol Ann Duffy and Wilfred Owen are well-known anti-war poets who express their concerns ad objections of war through poetry. Dawe’s ‘Homecoming’ and Slessor’s ‘Beach Burial’ explore the vastness of war and the futile magnitude of soldiers who had fallen in battle, never to return home. Contrastingly, Duffy’s ‘War Photographer’ and Owen’s ‘Arms and the Boy’ comment on the disability of psychologically returning home, exploring the corruption of innocence and youth, with those involved in war never to return home as the same person.

even made aware of the fact and the true horror of the war. During the

At the outbreak of the First World War, the English nation as a whole was in high spirits: the men rushed to sign up and fight for 'Old England'; their wives and girlfriends cheered them on—the nation marched into the war with enthusiastic patriotism. The Georgian poets, who had been producing a large quantity of poetry that would now be considered worthless, eyed a chance to increase their popularity (and sales), catch the spirit of the nation and evoke patriotism (which could sometimes border on nationalism). They felt that you should be willing to die for your country: they wrote poetry that actually glorified the idea of war. It was exactly what the majority of the public in Britain wanted to read, and volumes of patriotic poetry

Poetry is a form of writing that can be used to convey very strong emotions and ideas to the reader, this can be seen in the works of famous poet Wilfred Owen, Owen is the most well-known English trench warfare poet who fought in World War I. His military career began in 1915, when he enlisted himself in the Artists Rifle group and soon became a second lieutenant, like many young men he was ready to fight and die for his country. In 1917 he was wounded in battle and was diagnosed with shell shock; the year he spent in the hospital is when he wrote most of his poetry. His injury influenced many of his poems such as ‘’Conscious’’. Some of his most famous works include ‘’Dulce et Decorum Est’’, ‘’Insensibility’’, ‘’Anthem for Doomed Youth’’, ‘’Futility’’, and ‘’Strange Meeting’’. Owen was shot and died in battle on November 4, 1918; he was only 25 years old. In his poetry, Owen claims that war is a waste of human life and that it is horrible and cruel.

Thornhill, Rodger. "World War I and Wilfred Owen's Poetry." Yahoo! Contributor Network. Yahoo Voices, 30 July 2009. Web. 04 May 2013.