War is a subject that often stirs upon many emotions with those directly or indirectly involved. It may bring tears, memories of suffering and loneliness, struggles, or victories. Such disturbance of peace has wounded and killed many souls. It is on the battlefield we see the most hideous side of human nature, for every soldier's only objective on the battlefield is to survive and win. Many people have opposing views about wars which may have been developed over time based on many factors such as family upbringing, culture, political views, or personal experiences. In the two poems studied, Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum est" and Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade", war has been described with completely opposing views. In the former, Owen describes war as a horrifying and inglorious event with men in war being grim and sorrowful while the soldiers died devastatingly. On the other hand, Tennyson describes war as being a glorious and victorious event where it is an absolute honour for a soldier to die on the gallant battlefield.
To compare and contrast the two poems, the tone of the poems are examined where in "Dulce Et Decorum Est", Owen depicts the war as dismal, while in Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade", the author enlightens the experience of war as a heroic battle. To provide evidence of Owen's dreary portrayal of war, it is illustrated clearly in this tedious scene of war, "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge,". (Owen, 1-3) Owen used the simile of comparing soldiers to beggars with ill health and cursing effectively because the c...
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...ld rhythm to the poem while ignoring the fact that soldiers might not be the most eager to be fighting.
In conclusion, depending on the position from which one views war, the standpoint may vary ranging from being supportive of the soldiers because those who die are dying for the country or they are completely unsupportive of war activities because it is a brutal and gruesome experience involving countless unnecessary injuries and deaths. Affected by a number of factors, the authors of the two poems have chosen opposing standpoints on the issue of war where Tennyson glorified it with the main message that it is an honour to die for one's country whereas the other, Owen suppresses the idea of war by illustrating all the horrid experiences of a soldier.
Works Cited
Owen, Wilfred. Dulce et Decorum Est.
Lord Tennyson, Alfred. The Charge of the Light Brigade
Similarly, Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” describes a soldier who witnesses the death of his comrade from poisonous gas. Using imagery and irony, Owen presents a blunt contrast between the propaganda practiced for recruitment and the truth behind the suffering endured by the soldiers. While presented in different formats, both literary works criticize the romanticism of war, arguing that there is no glory in the suffering and killing caused by conflict.
Both Stephen Crane's "Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War Is Kind" and Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" use vivid images, diction rich with connotation, similes, and metaphors to portray the irony between the idealized glory of war and the lurid reality of war. However, by looking at the different ways these elements are used in each poem, it is clear that the speakers in the two poems are soldiers who come from opposite ends of the spectrum of military ranks. One speaker is an officer and the other is a foot soldier. Each of the speakers/soldiers is dealing with the repercussions from his own realities of the horror of war based on his duty during the battle.
In this essay I will attempt to compare and contrast Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum est” to Alfred Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade”. I will examine the use of poetic devices in the poems as well as outline what is happening in each.
In a poem titled "Dulce et Decorum Est", life in the trenches is graphically detailed to paint a vivid picture of World War I fighting techniques for the reader. Many others wrote about the injustices and cruelties of war at this time, but only one, Wilfred Owen, did so in such a permanent and meaningful way. Owen is known as one of the most infamous WWI poets, and has undoubtedly had more impact on the public conscience of the tragedy of war than any other writer of his generation.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” shows how one soldiers need to survive indirectly causes another soldiers death. From the very beginning of the poem the reader sees how the war affects the soldiers. Fighting in the war has aged the soldiers, the once young men now “bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags” trudge through the warzone (Owen 1-2). The men, completely drained f...
We have all heard war stories that seemed exciting and adventurous. Some stories are of men who gladly laid down their lives in the glory of battle and would do so again if given the chance. These stories tickle our sentiment and ease the pain of real war, but they do little to help us understand war's brutality. In his poem "Dulce et Decorum Est," Wilfred Owen does not attempt to pull the blood stained wool over our eyes. Instead of a novel quip, Owen gives us a look into the real horror of war. Using images of pain and sorrow, Owen gives us a taste of the front line that crushes any romantic ideas about war.
soldiers, and the unexpected experience of war. Lord Tennyson looks at the superior side of war and celebrates the beauty of war, although not knowing, the war had blundered and six hundred soldiers were now dead.
Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poem about World War I. Owen describes the horrors of war he has witnessed first-hand after enlisting in the war. Prior to his encounter with war he was a devote Christian with an affinity towards poetry, and after being swayed by war agitprop he returned home to enlist in the army; Owen was a pacifist and was at his moral threshold once he had to kill a man during the war. The poem goes into detail about what the soldiers had to endure according to Owen, “many had lost their boots / but limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; / drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots” (5-7). Owen’s conclusion to the poem is that “the old Lie; dulce et decorum est / pro patria mori” (27-28), Latin for “it is sweet and right to die for your country,” is not easily told when one has experienced war. In his detailed poem Owen writes about the true terrors of war and that through experience you would probably change your conceived notion about dying for your country.
In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’. Owen, throughout the poem, creates the impression of the trenches for the reader and stanza one helps to set the scene. The soldiers, who have been fighting for a long time in the trenches, are finally returning to their billets to rest. The exhaustion of the men is shown here through similes which compare the men to old beggars and hags, ‘like beggars under sacks’ and ‘coughing like hags’, although they were young men, showing just how exhausted they were and the effects the war is having on them physically. Also, the men are ‘blood-shod’ which makes them seem more like horses than human beings. Owen also uses metaphors in stanza one to describe the terrible tiredness the men were suffering from, ‘men marched asleep’. The stanza describes how the poor conditions of the trenches are putting a strain on the soldiers, until they are ‘knock-kneed’ and having to ‘trudge’ through the ‘sludge’ to get to their place of rest. They are ‘drunk with fatigue’ and limping with wounds or loss of boots. This stanza also illustrates the ...
War is an event that has been trivialized and encouraged by authority for a thousand years. From the First Crusade, to the American Revolutionary War to the current war in Afghanistan; it is something that society today still encourages men and women to participate in. Although our soldiers now have a far greater support system and understanding of war then those who participated in World War I, our ANZACs enlisted relying on the cheerful, happy times proposed in the government’s propaganda. Wilfred Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ challenges the image that the government put forth and brings portray the reality of war. The poem depicts the struggles of a soldiers return to base camp. It defies the image created by the government by displaying how gruesome and horrific the conditions that these men had to survive through.
The simple definition of war is a state of armed competition, conflict, or hostility between different nations or groups; however war differs drastically in the eyes of naive children or experienced soldiers. Whether one is a young boy or a soldier, war is never as easy to understand as the definition. comprehend. There will inevitably be an event or circumstance where one is befuddled by the horror of war. For a young boy, it may occur when war first breaks out in his country, such as in “Song of Becoming.” Yet, in “Dulce et Decorum Est” it took a man dying in front of a soldier's face for the soldier to realize how awful war truly is. Both “Song of Becoming” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” are poems about people experiencing the monstrosity of war for the first time. One is told from the perspective of young boys who were stripped of their joyful innocence and forced to experience war first hand. The other is from the perspective of a soldier, reflecting on the death of one of his fellow soldiers and realizing that there is nothing he can do to save him. While “Song of Becoming” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” both focus on the theme of the loss of innocence, “Song of Becoming” illustrates how war affects the lives of young boys, whereas “Dulce et Decorum Est” depicts the affect on an experienced soldier.
The poet Wilfred Owen was one of many poets who were against war. He reflected this idea of anti-war in his poems, one of his poems called “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, mirrors most aspects of war all put together in this short still deep poem. An example of that would be when the speaker stated,” What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”(1) The speaker asks is there any sound that marks our soldier’s death other than the sounds of church bell’s which are mostly rung to represent somebody’s absence? Clearly, the speaker sets anger as the tone of the poem through this question to show that soldier’s death is unremarkable.. The speaker compares the soldiers to a “cattle” which illustrates that soldiers are treated more like animals with no feelings and also shows how they are killed indiscriminately in war. Finally the line ironically contains an iambic pentameter which is a natural rhythm for such dark, grim, dull subject. The two novels, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, and All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, both present a similar idea of how soldiers are killed out there in the front comprehensively and the dehumanization of war towards its soldiers. The first novel is set during the Civil War, and it focuses on the psychological aspects of one soldier named Henry Fleming and how his naive thoughts about war constantly change through the course of the novel. The second novel presents the life of a soldier named Paul Baumer and his friends who were faced with the terribleness of war and how severely it affected their lives. The Red badge of Courage and All Quiet on The Western Front are similar in the way of how the main characters develop through the novel to change from naïve and innocent men ...
In this essay you will notice the differences and similarities between ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ and ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’. ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ was written in nineteenth century by Alfred Lord Tennyson. In contrast, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ was written in the twentieth century by Wilfred Owen. The main similarity we have observed is that they both capture war time experiences. However, the poets’ present these events using their own style, and the effect is two completely different observations of war.
Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” makes the reader acutely aware of the impact of war. The speaker’s experiences with war are vivid and terrible. Through the themes of the poem, his language choices, and contrasting the pleasant title preceding the disturbing content of the poem, he brings attention to his views on war while during the midst of one himself. Owen uses symbolism in form and language to illustrate the horrors the speaker and his comrades go through; and the way he describes the soldiers, as though they are distorted and damaged, parallels how the speaker’s mind is violated and haunted by war.
As a poet, Wilfred Owens wants to show the effects of warfare from the viewpoint of a soldier during a War. Owens uses his own experience as a fighter to capture the reader’s attention and get across his point. He often uses graphic imagery and words to depict his thoughts about war. Wilfred Owens, poems, “Dulce et Decorum est” and “Anthem for doomed youth” talk blatantly about the effects of warfare on the soldiers, their loved ones, and those who make an ultimate sacrifice by making a statement about the efficacy of war.