Compare the attitudes demonstrated between pre-war and at war with Brooke's poem "The Soldier" and Owen's poem "Dulce et Decorum est"

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Compare the attitudes demonstrated between pre-war and at war with Brooke’s poem “The Soldier” and Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum est”

Dulce et Decorum Est was written at war in 1917 by an English poet and World War I soldier Wilfred Owen. Dulce et decorum est is written in a very bitter manner, by a man who had very strong anti-war sentiments. The 27-line poem, written loosely in iambic pentameter is told from the eyes of Wilfred Owen.

        The opening line of this poem contains two similes which compares the soldiers to beggars and hags ‘bent double, like old beggars under sacks’, ‘coughing like hags.’ This is not how we would portray young, fit, soldiers, but the fact of the matter is that they are no longer fit, they are no longer keen and they barely remain soldiers. War has aged and deteriorated them so much so that they are now compared to hags and beggars. Showing us that war is neither ‘sweet’ nor ‘decorous’ (Dulce et Decorum). Owen continues his description of the solders with the lines
 ‘All went lame; all blind’, ‘Drunk with fatigue; deaf’ further describing their disabilities and to the extent at which war has effected them.

The onomatopoeia of ‘hoots’ and ‘dropped’ is an attempt to capture the sound of the 5.9 Calibre shells, with them hooting over head and dropping behind. The description of the five-nines, ‘tired, out striped’ shows us that they are no longer intimidating, even though they are dangerously life threatening. In the second stanza the poem begins its description of the gas attacks which is the central topic and the most described, because it is such a terrifying and the most horrific way to die.

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The pace of the poem increases with the outburst of warning “Gas! Gas! Quick boys!” which shows the urgency of the situation and the fact that the soldiers only have a few seconds perhaps to put their masks on. Owen uses the word boys which reminds us of their youth, but having already described them as aged and disabled we come to the fact that their youth was stolen, and we are also confronted with the concept that they are innocent victims within the war. “But someone still was yelling out and stumbling” this is the line where Owen begins ...

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