Choose two of Owens poems and compare his attitudes towards war and his choice of poetic styles to present these views.

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Choose two of Owens poems and compare his attitudes towards war and his choice of poetic styles to present these views.

I will be comparing the two poems ‘Anthem of doomed Youth’ and ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est.’

Anthem of doomed Youth is one of Owen’s most famous poems and one over, which he took great pains. The poem is written in sonnet form. The poem is a long comparison between the elaborate ceremonial of a Victorian-style funeral and the way in which men go to death in the Western Front. The poem was written while Owen was in Craiglockhart war Hospital. He was expressing his views and personal experiences from the front and back home. The poem compares home life to the front line; but it is shown in how the soldiers are treated after they fight and die for their country and that they have no meaning.

‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ is poem that describes four corresponding sections. The first deals with the extreme condition of the exhausted soldiers. The second stanza deals with a gas attack and the cruel death of a soldier. This also happens in ‘Exposure’ where the soldiers are attacked by shells and are confused to whether they are dead or alive. The third stanza is the poet’s reaction, and nightmare. The fourth stanza addresses the poetess. He expresses his views to the other poets who lie about the greatness of fighting.

So we can see, already only in my introduction, that the poems are in different context and at different scenes and have a different way of showing the same message which is said in both poems. The message is hidden in all of Owen’s poems. He is an Anti- war poet and tries to express his feelings of wear from personal experiences through his poems. The poems have hidden messages inside them, and show Owens true meaning to war and the soldiers. Both poems are from real-life experiences; Owen has seen the war at the Western Front for himself and has been through the same experiences as the other millions of men. Owen has just put into his words the views of millions of other young soldiers. It is full of imagery and all use of the senses, this is just like his other poem ‘Exposure’, where the poem is full of visual sensory.

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born on March 18th 1893. He was on the Continent teaching until he visited a hospital for the wounded and then declared, in September 1915, to return to England and enlist. He was seduced by the propaganda used to persuade boys to join the army. On 4th June 1916, after nine months of training, Owen became a second lieutenant. Though he had outwardly become an officer, determined that “if I get to be solider, I must be a good one, anything else is unthinkable.” He was now an inwardly poet. But on May 1st, Owen commanding officer noticed that he was shaking and confused in speech – he was suffering from ‘Neurasthermia’ or shell shock.

He was sent to Craiglockhart war Hospital. His time there was from June until October 1917 was to be of great importance to his development as a poet.

Before World War One Owen was a young boy wanting to help his country, just like millions of others, after the trauma at the western front he realised that the boys enlisting were going to the “Hell of Earth.”

Owen wrote, “All a poet can do is warn. That is why true poets must be truthful”

“Watch in those dreams still”. In those dreams the horror is re-born, the reality of battle re-shaped to the dimensions of poems; poems which we, his readers, our vision of reality of the Western Front “Hell of Earth.”

Owens attitude in both poems are anti-war.

In poem one, ‘Anthem of Doomed Youth,’ we can tell by the title that the poem is anti-war. ‘Anthem’ heralds the poems solemnity, Anthem is a song of praise; this is emphasis of the sadness and remorseful for the ‘Doomed Youth.’ The ‘Doomed Youth’ address the millions of dead and yet to die soldiers. This title yokes together contradictory terms; your youth is the time of hope, promise and years ahead and a time of looking towards the future. If the youth is ‘Doomed’, there can be no hope or future, just death. The youth will have no hope or future this means only death will come to the youth.

    In poem two, ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ which means ‘It is sweet and meet’, it is the opposite devise he has used to poem one. Here he has used a slight twist; by reading the title Owen has made us readers to believe his poem is pro-war, and his says all the great things about dieing for ones country. We think Owen is will be praising the soldiers and describe them and strong and brave on the front line.

Both poems have the same attitudes towards war, one of them the lack of respect to the soldiers and their death.

    In poem one Owen shows his attitude clearly and straight away just on the first line. ‘What passing bells for those who die as cattle?’ Owen here has used a rhetorical question to make the readers think and wonder. He has answered the question on the next line. The readers know straight away what the answer will be but Owen uses his poetic devises to answer this question in seven lines.

He asks the audience what respect and funeral will be given to the soldiers who died a painful death? ‘Die as cattle’ Owen uses animal references to the soldiers. Owen compares the soldier’s treatment with the treatment cattle receive when slaughtered. This simile has many implications. Cattle are slaughtered in large numbers as food for human consumption, and no one expresses any grief at their death. The soldiers are given no individual identity; they die brutally and with no ceremony to honour or recognize their humanity. Animals are below humans and are treated in a process of living for one purpose: to die for human survival. This is like the soldiers to live for one purpose: die to save humans and their country. ‘Die’ and ‘cattle’ are both stressed words, which Owen stresses and makes the reader, catch these two important words. They emphasise the meaning that the cattle are slaughtered just like the soldiers are, with no respect or dignity.

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      In poem two Owen shows a lack of respect to the soldiers. The poem is in four stanzas; the first deals with the extreme condition of the exhausted soldiers and is couched in somewhat hyperbolic terms – ‘all went lame; all blind’ – indicating the fervour of Owen’s feelings rather than the misery of the men.

The first line in ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ also shows the lack of respect to soldiers, just like in ‘Anthem of Doomed Youth.’ “Like old beggars under sacks,” this is a misplaced image and emphasize about the soldiers image on the ...

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