Literary Analysis Of 'The Soldier And Returning, We Hear The Larks'

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.

The idea of loss is explored diversely in the poems ‘Conscript’ by FA Horn and ‘The Photograph’ by Peter Kocan. Where ‘Conscript’ conveys the loss of a soldier on the battlefields of World War II and his physical demise, ‘The Photograph’ conveys the loss of a World War I Australian soldier and the grief his family endures with the passing of time. Although the two poems are set in different wars, the poets similarly reinforce the devastation, as well as the emotional and physical impact associated with war.

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

The poem was written to show that war is a waste of human life as the soldier knows he will die one day as well as the men around him, just some quicker than others. This can be evident in stanza four of the poem: “I know I’ll join them somewhere, one day.” The language used is more casual than formative, this is effective as it shows the personal feelings and thoughts of the soldier during the time

One of the ways in which poets present the ideas of patriotism is in the loss of hope as the war progresses, which patriotism helps to could help overcome in one war, but not another. For example, the soldiers don’t lose hope despite the mistake made by one of the commanders in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ due to their patriotic views as seen through the words: ‘Theirs but to do and die’ … ‘Into the Valley of Death’. The words ‘but to do and die’ suggest that the soldiers were so patriotic

During times of war, it is inevitable for loss to be experienced by all. In the poems “The Black Rat” and “The Photograph” written by Iris Clayton and Peter Kocan respectively, the idea of loss is explored through an omniscient narrator recalling a soldier’s involvement in warfare. While Clayton writes of a soldier’s abrupt loss of hope and how this experience negatively affects his life, Kocan explores how the loss of a loved one affects a family sixty years later. While both poems incorporate similar techniques in imagery and narration, the time setting for each poem is different as “The Black Rat” is set in Tobruk, Libya during World War 2 and “The Photograph” is set during World War 1.

The poem starts with similar word choices as ‘The Soldier’ but written in the perspective of the mother. The mother tells his son that when he dies he will be in a place of ‘quietness’ and free from the ‘loss and bloodshed’. This reinforces the fact that the battlefield was full of horrors and death. The poem then moves onto how ‘men may rest themselves and dream of nought’ explaining that the soldiers do not have to fear for their lives after their death. This illustrates how they feared for their lives and had negative connotations.

The Soldier was written at the beginning of World War One before anyone had a chance to experience the atrocity of a world war. The sonnet portrays a romanticised view of the positives of war for his home

The destruction and violence of war are permanent scars in our lives. It’s narrated in memoir style as the narrator recounts some of his experiences as well as alluding to both the physical and emotional trauma of the experience. The poem evokes intense emotion in the reader positioning them to identify with the young soldier at war. Metaphors are cleverly used to highlight the situation the young man is enduring, in the lines, ‘it was a war within yourself’. The repetition of the title ‘I was only nineteen’ deliberately reminds the audience about how young this boy was and that he was naïve. Illustrating to the audience that the soldier’s experience was unusual and worthy of note. This poem is addressing the concept of loss of youth. It is acting as a social comment and reflecting on how the lives of the youth were lost as a result of the wars. It was written as a protest song to convey the writer’s social commentary which is distinctly anti-war and reminds us of the dangers that the war has caused. To share the experience of those who went to war and what they went through. ‘Can you tell me what it means?’ here this rhetorical question creates sympathy from the reader as well as express the idea of that only the leaders really know what was going on in the war while the young men did not have a clue of what and why they

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.

In this poem, a soldier

causes the poem to flow, and thus lightens up the dark and serious issue of war. The lines "But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place." are easy to read; however, their meaning is extremely

The first stanza connotes a slight sense structure as the phrase “ and his buddies did too” is repeated after stating each action the soldier does. Moreover, the lines themselves are structured in such a way that suggests a deliberate organized form- especially in comparison to how the rest of the poem is written. Most interesting about the

“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

.The hypothetical speaker, a German Jew, is concerned about Jews' conditions, regarding in particular homeless people, social differences .Those make the song no less ominous. Death is present throughout and the poem ends with the image of the soldiers looking for the