The Heroism of Dying for One's Country in Poetry

The Heroism of Dying for One's Country in Poetry

The Volunteer is a Pro-War poem written by Herbert Asquith. Asquith

uses roman imagery to invoke a feeling of greatness and honour.

Asquith begins his poem by describing the miserable, mundane life of a

clerk, working in a 'city grey'. He opens with the words 'Here lies'

that are normally used to begin writing on a gravestone. This

'epitaph' - style opening gives the idea that the clerk has now passed

away and the poem will concentrate on events beforehand. We are told

the clerk has spent 'half his life' doing boring work ('..Toiling at

ledgers..'), his days drifting away. There is a distinct lack of

fulfilment in his life, '..With no lance broken in life's tournament'

('Lance' is roman imagery)

And yet he dreams of '..The gleaming eagles of the legions..' and

horsemen '..thundering past beneath the oriflamme..' (or battle flag.)

Asquith cleverly uses the expression '..The gleaming eagles of the

legions..' to conjure up ideas in the reader's mind of great gleaming

roman soldiers. This adds to the ideology that war is a glamorous and

noble thing.

In his second stanza, Asquith tells us that '..those waiting dreams

are satisfied..' Obviously, the clerk has joined the army. He talks of

'..waiting dreams..' giving the impression that the clerk has dreamt

of this for a very long time. He goes on to say '..From twilight to

the halls of dawn he went..' I think what he means is that the clerk

has gone from his dull city to a new, brighter beginning. And although

he died he is happy. '..His lance is broken but he lies content..'

Because in that 'high hour in which he lived and died' he achieved

something he had dreamt of forever. Asquith also mentions that the ...

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...er uses images of death and an epitaph style opening

to convey the message of a valiant death. I don't think that making

the reader think of death will inspire him or her to fight for their

country at all. Dulce est Decorum Est is the most effective poem of

the three. It's usage of vivid and horrific imagery could make any

patriotic citizen think again before going to war. The structure of

the poem is extremely well thought out because it begins to get

extremely shocking in the final stanza, almost certainly making the

reader sway away from the honourable image he or she had of war before

reading. It then finishes with labelling Dulce et decorum est Pro

patria mori a lie. This is intelligent because the reader is at his

most easily influenced after reading the horrific description in the

final stanza and therefore is more likely to agree with this point.