War in Poetry
Since before man could begin to remember, war has been an omnipresent course of action as conflict has been, and still is, wide spread throughout the world. War is seen by some as a grim evil, while others perceive it to be a brave and glorious feat. These conflicting views have been the themes behind many works of literature, especially many works of poetry. In these poems the poets try to convey their beliefs of war using many different literary elements, such as imagery and tone. In the poems "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen, and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Lord Alfred Tennyson, two contradicting and different view towards war are portrayed through the authors' uses of imagery and tone.
In "Dulce et Decorum Est" Owen paints a pessimistic picture of what war really is like. Owen himself lost his life fighting for the British during WWI in 1918, the poem being published posthumously two years later. He describes the treacherous lives the soldiers lived while fitting in the war. He describes the weak physical and emotional conditions they experienced as they made there way through the mud and sludge. As the poet he gives an accurate portrayal of the negativity of war to reader, this is mainly done in his description of one solider who cannot affix his gas mask in time to thwart off a gas attack. His vivid description of this soldier's painstaking death illustrates the horrors of war. His pessimistic tone is exemplified at the end of the poem where he contradicts the old Latin saying, Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori, "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country" by labeling it an "old lie".
Contrary to Owen's views towards war, Lord Alfred Tennyson gives a more optimistic view of war in his poem entitled "The Charge of the Light Brigade". Tennyson wrote this poem as part of his duties as Poet Laureate of Great Britain. The poem was written to commemorate a tremendous feat made by a British Calvary unit in the Crimean War. Tennyson portrays a more glorious and heroic battlefield compared to Owen. He describes loud cannons going off, and shiny sabers being wailed around, as men on horses attack each other, as though it were right out of an old movie.
Dulce et Decorum est was written in a time where they were just that little bit more advanced with their arms. The two different poets have totally different attitudes inspiring the poems, as they are both from different backgrounds, Tennyson wasn't actually there when all this was taken place so all the information he displays in his poem have been taken from different sources. Unlike Wilfred Owen, the writer of Dulce et Decorum est, he was actually in the war so his information is first hand which he witnessed with his very own eyes, which really gives a better more authentic, devastating effect. "The Charge of the Light Brigade" was written about the Crimean war which was happening in Turkey 100s of miles away. The soldiers fighting In this war were English, so this may have been one of the reasons that Tennyson was so involved.
This speech is an attempt by King Henry to raise morale among his troops after having passed among his men while in disguise and discovering total self-desolation caused by the knowledge that the French outnumbered the... ... middle of paper ... ... rd Tennyson and William Shakespeare never actually were present during any battle and wrote simply in response to popular belief. After 1900, as the media started to give more accurate accounts of the atrocities of war, less non-combatants pedalled such a romanticised view of war. It was poets such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon who wrote their views on war.
“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...
All exceptional poetry displays a good use of figurative language, imagery, and diction. Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" is a powerful antiwar poem which takes place on a battlefield during World War I. Through dramatic use of imagery, metaphors, and diction, he clearly states his theme that war is terrible and horrific.
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 is a tired soldier on the front line during World War I. In the first stanza of Dulce Et Decorum Est he describes the men and the condition they are in and through his language shows that the soldiers deplore the conditions. Owen then moves on to tell us how even in their weak human state the soldiers march on, until the enemy fire gas shells at them. This sudden situation causes the soldiers to hurriedly put their gas masks on, but one soldier did not put it on in time. Owen tells us the condition the soldier is in, and how, even in the time to come he could not forget the images that it left him with. In the last stanza he tells the readers that if we had seen what he had seen then we would never encourage the next generation to fight in a war.
Owen as a young soldier held the same romantic view on war as majority of the other naive soldiers who thought that war would be an exciting adventure. The documentary extract illustrates how markedly Owen’s perspective of the war changed, as noted in a letter to his mother while he was still in the front lines: “But extra for me, there is the universal perversion of ugliness, the distortion of the dead ... that is what saps the soldierly spirit.” In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, Owen’s change of heart is evident through the irony of the poem title and the ending line “The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est, Pro patria mori.”, an allusion to the Roman axiom made famous by Horace, which translates to “The old Lie; It is sweet and right to die for your country.”. The line depicts Owen’s realisation that the horrific nature of war through human conflict is not sweet and right at all, rather, it is appalling and “bitter as the cud” as death is always present on the battlefield. Additionally, Owen indirectly responds to Jessie Pope’s poetry, a pro-war poetess, through the reference “My friend, you would not tell with such high zest… The old lie…”, further highlighting his changed perspective towards the war which has been influenced
Ultimately, we have two poems which can be compared on the grounds of their subject, but are poles apart regarding their message. The structure of these poems is not what would be typically expected from a war poem, but are structured on the basis of these typical structures in order to create some sense of familiarity. Brooke’s poem expands on this familiarity while Owen attempts to deliberately sabotage it. In regards to content, Brooke shows throughout his perception of the nobility of dying for one’s country, whilst Owen uses all of his poetic techniques to show the opposite.
Dulce et Decorum Est In Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” the speaker’s argument against whether there is true honor in dying for ones country in World War I contradicts the old Latin saying, Dulce et Decorum Est, which translated means, “it is sweet and honorable to die for the fatherland”; which is exemplified through Owen’s use of title, diction, metaphor and simile, imagery, and structure throughout the entirety of the poem. The first device used by Owen in the poem is without a doubt the title, which he uses to establish the opposing side of the argument in the poem. The poem is titled, “Dulce et Decorum Est”, which comes from Horace’s Odes, book three, line 13, and translated into English to mean: “It is sweet and honorable to die for the fatherland”. With this title it would seem as if the Owen himself condones the patriotic propaganda that resulted in the deaths of young men in World War I, tallying upwards of hundreds of thousands.
The soldiers are being attacked by poisonous gas. Owen draws attention to the one soldier who didn’t put his gas mask on fast enough. The poor man is suffering to the point of death in front of his fellow soldiers. Bryan Rivers, in his article, “Wilfred Owen’s Letter No. 486 As A Source For “Dulce Et Decorum Est,” explains Owen’s views about war by stating, “In his depiction of war, there is no “home” or place of safety “well behind”; just when the struggling soldiers think themselves safe from the “tired, outstripped FiveNines,” the gas suddenly overtakes them” (29). Owen concludes this poem by stating that anyone who experienced what happened to that unlucky soldier would view war differently. Owen’s goal was to display the realities of war and not portray it as heroic. This is one example of how World War I impacted
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.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” showing an anti-war side, the poem was originally entitled to Jessie Pope. It shows a tone through out the poem of depression, sadness Owen gets his message across very rapidly and makes the reader feel like they had just experienced the war in the few minutes of reading ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ this is done from the metaphors and magnificent imagery used to show a terrible side of war.
He may have used this technique to make war seem if it had made men
The meaning of "Dulce Et Decorum Est" is "it is sweet and right", yet there is nothing sweet and right about going through what these soldiers went through on a daily basis in WWI. The first few lines use sad and depressing language to express an image of roughy soldiers pushing through an ever threatening battlefield. "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock- kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge" (lines 1- 2) is the way Owen describes the soldiers. This dismisses the belief that the soldiers were happy, proud, and patriotic. This shows them as physically and mentally exhausted, still pushing forward towards the one and only goal of surviving. Their disintegrating body reflects their inner turmoil and tiredness. The horrendous quality of war is shown by the description of the soldiers "men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood shod" (lines 5-6) this enhances the fact that war is not normal. It seems unreal, much like that of a nig...
The poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen portrays the horrors of World War I with the horrific imagery and the startling use of words he uses. He describes his experience of a gas attack where he lost a member of his squadron and the lasting impact it had on him. He describes how terrible the conditions were for the soldiers and just how bad it was. By doing this he is trying to help stop other soldiers from experiencing what happened in a shortage of time.