Compare and contrast the two poems, focusing on how the poets use

In doing do I will look at how each poet is effective in conveying the message through their use of imagery. Wilfred Owen most eminent poem regarding war is known as Dulce et Decorum est which means The Old Lie in Latin. T... ... middle of paper ... ...eam for fighting for their country is in reality a living nightmare both physically and psychologically and in fact there is nothing honourable in war and life on the battlefield. Instead he wants the reader to understand that war rapes a soldier of human dignity. He does this effectively through the use of his bold description of the gas attack incident and his elaborate description of the soldiers appearances.

One is the voice of the dead who describe being awoken by the noise of the great guns, the other is God! IN this the message is more abstract because of the way Hardy jokes with us about the war and Gods views on it. Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" was written during his World War I experience. Owen, an officer in the British Army, deeply opposed the intervention of one nation into another. His poem explains how the British press and public comforted themselves with the fact that all the young men dying in the war were dieing noble, heroic deaths.

Owen presents us a sarcastic view towards the idea of being honorable to sacrifice for their country and buttresses it with abundant of horrific images. It is a war sonnet that captures the feelings of survivors to those who lost their lives in war. The use of a sonnet creates a sense of intensity in his poem, briefness and portrays the nature of death on a battlefield. Moreover, Owen uses the rhyme scheme of “ababcdcdeffegg” to show the strong division between the lines. The choice of a sonnet allows Owen to convey his message effectively and remain emotional to keep the readers interested.

Figurative languages have been used in both poems to portray their experiences at war. Wilfred Owen uses figurative languages such as personification to portray the horrid truth of war. Owen does this by using words related to pessimism. “Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;”, from th... ... middle of paper ... ...ication and imagery have a great effect on differentiating the two view points of war. The essay discusses the opposing attitudes of a soldiers life, in which Owen’s poem has a horrid tone and Brooke’s has a patriotic tone.

By use of gripping words and vivid descriptions, Owen paints incredible pictures of what World War I was really like. He tears away the glory and drama and reveals the real essence of fighting: fear, torture, and death. No longer are we left with good feelings and pretty phrases like "Liberty and justice for all!" Instead, our hearts grieve over what these soldiers had to suffer through. Every line of the poem rebuts the Roman poet Horace's quotation: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori--It is sweet and becoming to die for one's country."

Owen called it this because war was no longer skilful like it once was in roman times fighting face to face close combat, war was now full of gas shells, bombs and long distance shots. The reality was that you could be the best soldier in the world and get gassed from an oblivious enemy and lay there dying from a cheap shot. However, until Owen challenged the lie other war poets such as Tennyson who wrote 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' in 1854 and Brooke who wrote 'The Soldier' in 1914 agreed with the Latin saying telling people through their poems that it was honourable to die for your country. Lord Alfred Tennyson was a poet in 19th Century. One of the poems he wrote is called 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'.

Both poets swirl around the idea of death in the name of ones country, in this case England in the World War 1 era, but this example serves different purposes in the two poems. Owen uses a graphic example where he remorsefully describes the death caused by a gas attack, exposing to his readers that war is an ugly, brutal and detestable encounter. Yet Brooke uses a different approach, and expresses that not only is it every man’s duty to fight and die for his country to preserve perfection, but once dead, the ashes shall physically enrich the already ‘rich’ soil “In that rich earth, a richer dust concealed”. And all ‘English’ values that the motherland bore will live on in one form or another. This way Brooke tries to convince that there is a deeper meaning to what lies on the surface of war.

George Johnson’s critical essay “‘Purgatorial Passions’: ‘The Ghost’ (a.k.a. Wilfred Owen) in Owen’s poetry” he discusses Wilfred Owen’s poetry about the civilians’ delusion about the inhumanity of World War I. In Owen’s poems, he mainly “assigned himself the role of witness to "the pity of War," providing a warning of war 's truth for the next generation; to a large extent he succeeded since our perception of World War One, and perhaps of all wars, has been indelibly impressed by his truth” (Johnson 1). This supports the idea that the truth about the horrors of the war should be revealed to the civilians. Owen’s poetry targets at people who are not experienced with the war.

In contrast Owen's poem attacks the idealistic and romantic view put forward by Brooke. He argues against the ideals of heroism and self-sacrifice. He is more concerned with all the men going into war thinking that it is heroic and glorious when actually it is horrible and that millions of men die every day. The poem which I prefer between Rupert Brooke's The Soldier and Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est is Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum because it describes the war as I believe it is and it is very descriptive on how the gas attack happened and how all the men felt. So I like Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum overall

Poems of War Rupert Brooke’s “The Dead” (Brooke p109) tries to convince you that death in battle is sweet and honorable. Compared to Wilfred Owens “Dulce et Decorum est” we read a poem with a completely different opinion about war. It's a gruesome first hand experience of trench warfare. Through the entire poem Rupert Brooke tries to persuade the younger generation of readers in joining the army. He tries to make it seem sensational, and plead to the younger generation by making it come across as heroic.