Comparing and Contrasting the two poems:"An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" by WB Yeats and "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen

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Comparing and Contrasting the two poems:

“An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” by WB Yeats and

“Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen

WB Yeats was an extremely successful Irish poet who was extraordinarily patriotic and proud to be Irish. He played his part in the Irish Renaissance at the beginning of the 1900s. Although he was a proud Irishman he chose to show his patriotism through his poetry instead of political or military action. Through his poems he spoke of national heroes’ bravery and well doings instead of their political status or where they stood in society.  He praised people who did things for a cause or beliefs; for example he described the Easter Rising as a “terrible beauty”.  WB Yeats scarcely wrote about war but when he did he criticized the soldiers that did not believe they were fighting for a cause, had any purpose, knowing they will most likely lose their life or just go because they think they have nothing to lose. This opinion of Yeats’ is what this poem is based on and it is Major Robert Gregory who demonstrated the actions he criticizes. Gregory had the “I have nothing to lose” attitude towards it decided he would do something he enjoyed while he died. The poem states that he went to war for “a lonely impulse of delight” and he did not care about any “cheering crowds” or “duty”.  He did not see any meaning or point in the past, future or present and saw it all as a “waste of breath”.

        Wilfred Owen however is against war for a different reason: the needless deaths that are inevitably going to take place. He was a soldier in the Manchester regiment in World War 1 and had experienced the horrors of trenches first hand.  After going through the traumas many soldiers in war experience (injuries, shell shock) he was sent to a hospital in Edinburgh where he met another poet – Siegfried Sassoon – and was greatly influenced by him on his view of life. He became more of a passivist after this meeting.  This was evident in many of his poems and his abhorrence of war became stronger.  Owen used his first hand trench experiences to portray war as pointless and a waste of life and his newly adopted passivist attitude helped this along.  Many times these statements showed bitterness and hatred towards the authorities and people sending this “Youth” off to war to die. In one of his poems he tries to show the reader that if they had seen what he had, they would not speak of the glory of dying for your country, as he believed there was none. He was killed by machine gun fire just a month after being awarded the Military Cross.

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Whereas “Anthem for Doomed Youth” outlines his opinion that deaths in war are for a meaningless cause and the soldiers may as well be cattle dying, as he describes in the first line. He continually compares death in war with a normal death, which is accompanied by a funeral and other rituals.  He lists all the things that soldiers lack when they die - bells, prayers, mourning, candles etc – and all they hear or receive is the continual “stuttering rifle’s rapid rattle”, “monstrous anger of the guns” and “demented choirs of wailing shells”.  The message of this poem is ...

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