Compare And Contrast John Keats And Anthem For Doomed Youth

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The form of a poem can be understood simply as the physical structure. However, there are various aspects that make it up that contribute towards the goals of the poet. I find that the sonnets “When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be”, by John Keats, and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, by Wilfred Owen, make efficient use of their formal elements to display the depth of the situation of their poems. Keats uses a Shakespearean sonnet structure to organize his thoughts being displayed throughout the poem and to construct them around the speaker’s fear that is the central focus of the sonnet. Owen’s sonnet is a Petrarchan sonnet, although it has a rhyme scheme similar to a Shakespearean, which allows him to display a contrast between the images the The similar rhyme schemes of the two sonnets allow for clear organization of the speaker’s ideas and support these ideas through comparison and connection. Both poems use or essentially use a Shakespearean rhyme scheme to provide rhythm for their sonnets, while adding extra emphasis to the topics presented throughout them. Owen uses the rhyme scheme in a way to stress his description of the enraged scene of the battlefield, and to further the dehumanization of the soldiers at war. The simile used to compare the soldiers to “cattle”, is connected to the fast “rattle” of the rifles, furthering the image of the inhumane way the soldiers we killed (1,3). Owen alters the Shakespearean rhyme scheme in the eleventh line making a switch to create two lines in a row that rhyme, rather than alternating. This allows for a smooth transition in his description of the ritual that marks a soldier’s death. To draw attention to the tears “in their eyes”, which could be in the eyes of the dead soldier or of their brothers at war, they are connected to the “glimmer of good-byes”, to represent the quick mourning for the soldiers (10-11). The connection here is furthered with the use of enjambment at the end of the tenth line; with no grammatical separation, the thought smoothly transitions from one line to the other. On the other hand, Keats uses the exact Shakespearean rhyme In the sonnets “When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be”, by John Keats, and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, by Wilfred Owen, the poets’ use of formal elements create distinctions to mark the speakers’ thoughts and build upon the situation. Although the two sonnets differ in their general structure, the formal elements making up that structure are just as crucial for both of them to organize and contrast the themes and ideas present throughout the

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