Influence Of Modern Literature On The Representation Of The First World War

Often, personal experiences are what influence a poet’s writing. Since the 1600s and up until World War One, poets have been heavily impacted by the glorification of war, as well as the catastrophic losses the world has suffered from. Poets such as Richard Lovelace and Lord Tennyson glorified the sacrifices soldiers made for their countries and honored them. While poets like Mary Borden and Wilfred Owen expressed their outrage towards war because they have witnessed the brutality and wickedness of it. In the two poetry collections, diction is the main factor in establishing the tone and theme of each poem.

The topic of war is hard to imagine from the perspective of one who hasn't experienced it. Literature makes it accessible for the reader to explore the themes of war. Owen and Remarque both dipcik what war was like for one who has never gone through it. Men in both All Quiet on the Western Front and “Dulce Et Decorum” experience betrayal of youth, horrors of war and feelings of camaraderie.

War is a scandalous topic where peoples’ views differ as to what war is. Some people see it as pure evil and wicked while others think that it is brave and noble of what soldiers do. Looking at poems which had been written by people affected by war help show the messages which are portrayed. The two sets of poems which show different views of war as well as some similarities are “the Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, “To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars” by Richard Lovelace and “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, “The Song of the Mud” by Mary Borden. Both these poets use linguistic devices to convince the reader of their view of what the war is. Tennyson and Lovelace show how war is worthy

In the incredible book, All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, the reader follows Paul Baumer, a young man who enlisted in the war. The reader goes on a journey and watches Paul and his comrades face the sheer brutality of war. In this novel, the author tries to convey the fact that war should not be glorified. Through bombardment, gunfire, and the gruesome images painted by the author, one can really understand what it would have been like to serve on the front lines in the Great War. The sheer brutality of the war can be portrayed through literary devices such as personification, similes, and metaphors.

War is always the worst tragedy of mankind in the world. We, as human beings, were experienced two most dolorous wars that were ever happened in our history: World War I and World War II. A young generation actually does not know how much hardship the predecessors, who joined and passed through the wars, undergo. We were taught about just how many people died in the wars, how much damage two participations in the wars suffered or just the general information about the wars. We absolutely do not know about the details, and that’s why we also do not know what the grief-stricken feeling of people joining in the wars really is. But we can somewhat understand that feeling through war novels, which describe the truthfulness of the soldiers’ lives, thoughts, feelings and experiences. All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, which takes World War I as background, is the great war novel which talks about the German soldiers ' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the hopeless of these soldiers about the “future” – the time the war would have ended.

These two war novels All Quiet on the Western Front and A Farewell to Arms are both novels that are seen as being anti-war. Both novels express the negative side of the war in all aspects. Nonetheless, each novel has its own indications of its opposition with the war. The characters in the novels experience the war through different perspectives and through different experiences. One novel can be seen as a love story and the other novel shows the untruthfulness behind the war. I will be talking about each of the novels and how they are seen as being anti-war and will also be comparing and contrasting the differences of each novel and its relations of being anti-war.

This first World War is described as if it was experienced and takes over the prestige of the heroes and charming picture. It is rapidly replaced by bloodbaths, fear and horror. World War 1 represented more than a simple war between many nations, it was the point where the conception of the humanity in the military conflict took a turn. It attained a terrible and disastrous level of violence that lasted for months and years. Morover, new methods and technologies were used to fight the enemy. The introduction of toxic gas, trenches and machine guns, that made the battle easier and in a way more indirect to fight, because soldier did not have to be close to the enemy and be exposed to fight. All along this novel Remarque intensifies on the conditions of World War 1 and describes the terror and horror that impacted physical and psychological damages. At the end of the novel most of the main characters are dead and this symbolizes the devastating outcome of this war to this young boys that were pushed into the war. Thus the novel can be categorized as an antiwar novel because of the themes that describes the young boys that had planned other ideas for their future. The author writes his ideas through an ironic tone to make us feel the brutality of this war and how death become a routine for him until the

“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.” In the words of Walt Whitman, to be empathetic is to feel another’s emotions. In order to feel the pain of others, one must experienced it themselves. War creates a situation where much empathy is needed to show compassion. John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields”, Ernst Junger’s novel “ Storm of Steel” and the film “All Quiet on the Western Front”, demonstrate how war, specifically World War I, demands empathy. The motif and irony in the poem, the descriptive language and repetition in the novel, and the sounds throughout the movie, spark an empathetic emotion in the hearts of those who experience them.

Intensively striking war imagery emerges throughout the course of the text and therefore effectively joins its underlining fore.  Graphic images of the grotesque face of war characterize and develop the

One of the most heavily impacted cultural arenas to be touched by the war was literature. Literature during the Great War often reflects upon and bitingly criticizes the horrors of war, as well as the changes society was undergoing and provides a drastic transition between pre and post war work. Many social, political, and economic shifts occurred during the war, and any of the writers of the time felt the need to speak out against the flaws they saw in their society, sometimes even while fighting for their lives in the trenches. The new style of war allowed soldiers an unprecedented amount of time to ponder the battles which they fought; not only in the literal sense, but battles of the mind and spirit which were of no shortage in the hellish

One thing that several WW1 poets use (such as Wilfred Owen and Edith Nesbit) is natural imagery to show the negative effects of war on nature. In the poem ‘Exposure’ Owen uses natural imagery in the form of personification throughout the poem, and uses vicious verbs and nouns to show what nature does to the soldiers: “merciless iced east winds that knife us” and “mad gusts tugging”. The words “mad” and “merciless” conveys the fact that nature is attacking the soldiers with violent and cruel actions, as suggested by the vocabulary, and this proposes that even nature has been corrupted by war. A second poem which uses natural imagery is “Spring in War-Time” by Edith Nesbit, which uses natural imagery in a slightly different way. The poem shows what she loves in nature that is being corrupted or overthrown by war, shown in the title as the fact that Spring’s and war’s roles have been reversed and spring has just become a small time within war.

Poems using strong poetic technique and devices are able to create a wide range of emotions from the readers. Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively uses these poetic techniques and devices to not only create unsettling images about war but to provide his opinion about war itself with the use of themes within his poem. The use of these themes explored Owen’s ideas on the futility of war and can be seen in the poems: Anthem for Doomed Youth, Futility and The Next War. The poems provide unsettling images and belief of war through the treatment of death, barbaric nature of war and the futility of war.

Throughout Wilfred Owen’s collection of poems, he unmasks the harsh tragedy of war through the events he experienced. His poems indulge and grasp readers to feel the pain of his words and develop some idea on the tragedy during the war. Tragedy was a common feature during the war, as innocent boys and men had their lives taken away from them in a gunshot. The sad truth of the war that most of the people who experienced and lived during the tragic time, still bare the horrifying images that still live with them now. Owen’s poems give the reader insight to this pain, and help unmask the tragedy of war.

World War One began on July 28, 1914 and ended with the signing of the armistice on November 11, 1918. The war cost a total of one hundred eighty-six billion dollars. The total casualties of the war were thirty-seven million, with another eleven million civilian casualties. The British Empire alone lost over three million people in the war. (English) World War One effected the whole world- the heartache and bloodshed changed politics, economics, and public opinion. This war changed people's lives, but it also changes their way of thinking and their way of writing. After World War One British literature was changed from simple stories to a more realistic and meaningful approach to life.

The war poet and war poetry in general were terms used firstly within context of the World War I.. From the beginning of the war times, poetry was written mostly by civilians, not by poets. Such poetry had no established identity. It was later, between 1914 and 1918 when this type of poetry acquired notion of genre, and so-called soldier-poets became a species. Enormous increase in writing poetry related to the war occurred. War poetry became very realistic, describing situation as it was perceived by participants and soldiers. Genre of war poetry was really powerful – it could dramatize, energize and inspire language used in poetry. (DAS,2013,n.p)