The Old Lie!

The tone is bitter and intense in a realistic way. It is achieved by the vivid and gruesome images in the poem. Wilfred Owen 's use of imagery in this poem is by depicting emotional, nightmarish, and vivid words to capture the haunting encounters of WWI that soldiers went through. In the first stanza, Owen depicts his fellow soldiers struggling through the battlefield, but their terrible health conditions prevent them from their strong actions in the war. When Owen says, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags” (lines 1-2).

Wilfred Owen The poems written by Wilfred Owen are about the horrors, the ugliness, the suffering and the countless tragedies that war has brought. The anti-war them and serious tone used in his poems is extremely effective at portraying ear as horrid and devastating. The detailed descriptions of blood, guts and death are overpowering. In the poem 'Dulce Et Decorum Est', Owen stresses how war should not be glorified or glamorised. The title meaning 'It is sweet and becoming to die for one's country' is used satirically because the poem describes the horror and agony that the soldiers endured during their time in the trenches.

The Views of Rupert Brooke and Wil My selected poems are 'The Soldier' by Rupert Brooke and 'Dulce et Decorum est' by Wilfred Owen. Both war poems but conveying their different feelings and presenting their views of war in radically different ways. The poets have polarized views of war with Rupert Brooke writing his poem in a romanticized and patriotic way referring to the possibility of death as a noble cause, for England the land that gave him life. This is at odds to how Wilfred Owen views the reality and horror of war. The poets choice of title 'Dulce et Decorum est' which translated means 'It is lovely and honourable to die for your country' which in its self is irony, misleads you to think that the poem is going to be about how blissful it is to die for your country and how proud you should be, when the reality is so different.

He does this very effectively and bluntly in the last lines of the poem 'Dulce et Decorum est', "My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori." This is simply expressing that if anyone had been in the war they would not tell young men the same story as the Government propaganda which tells of the glories of dying for their country as they would realise the reality and true horror of war.

Wilfred Owen is undoubtedly one of the greatest First World War poets, revealing the true horrors of the war and the appalling and horrendous impact that it had on those on the front line. Owen was not anti war; in fact he is well documented in stating that there was a place for war, volunteering himself to go to the front line. Unlike many of his predecessors, Owen did not glorify the War and ignorantly celebrate it, instead he became increasingly discontented with the purpose behind it. He began to loose confidence in the purpose of the War and his opinion on the War, having originally enlisted full of hope and jubilation, took a dramatic change. Owen questioned whether or not the ultimate sacrifices being made were really appreciated by those at home, whilst they glorified and encouraged the War.

The man is now a charity case ‘take whatever pity they may dole.’ If he had not fought in the war then this would never have happened to him. Owen uses striking images and vivid imagery in both poems to clearly show his anger of people who were disillusioned about war, and to show the harsh reality of war. A sense of pathos runs throughout the poems in the reader for the men. The sarcasm used in ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ shows Owens passion of getting his point across. Many peoples attitude of war in England had changed drastically by the time Wilfred Owen wrote these two poems.

This description portrays the soldiers to be ‘crippled or ‘broken’, and shows them to be left both psychologically and physically scarred. It really helps us to visualize a group of young men who are in fact exhausted and so “drunk with fatigue”(stanza 1, line 7) that they are unable to even stand upright, and have lost most control over their physical actions. By bringing in these similes, Owen adds mo... ... middle of paper ... ...ith the use of irony, giving it greater depth, meaning and soul. To summarize, Owen uses numerous literary techniques to illustrate his firsthand experience of World War One, and communicates his opinions with a distinguished use of metaphors, similes, personifications, themes, imagery and irony. Owen recognized that the high casualties and unnecessary deaths in World War One were all in fact a metaphor for all death in modern warfare; the well known ‘glory’ of dying for one’s country was simply a lie.

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.

He portrays this by his use of similes, metaphors and vocabulary. He uses similes such as, "Bent double, like hags"; this simile illustrates how many of the men fall ill! Owen also uses metaphors such as, "Drunk with fatigue", to display how tired the infantrymen are, this metaphor leads us to believe that the men are so tired that they are unaware what is happening around them! The poet's choice of vocabulary in verse one is very effective in communicating the message of fatigue. He uses words such as sludge, trudge, and haunting to describe the ... ... middle of paper ... ...My friend, you would not tell with such high zest, To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori."

Further effects of witnessing of the horrors of war are also sensed in the sixth line, ‘Gouged these chasms around the... ... middle of paper ... ... decorum est Pro patria mori, It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country. Though in this case those soldiers would not be thinking so. (Finalise background of Wilfred Owen) With that said, this poem by Owens was mainly addressed to those who rallied the youth of England, who urged them to fight for personal glory and national honor. Though if they could witness the physical agony or experience the emotional trauma that the speaker felt then it would have changed their views. For death is not glorious or honourable and either is war.