How did poets in the early stages of World War 1 seek to glorify war and present war as worthwhile?

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Amanda McCarthy

How did poets in the early stages of

World War 1 seek to glorify war and present war as worthwhile?

‘Who’s for the game’, ‘The Soldier’, ‘In Flanders Field’ and ‘Rendezvous’ are four poems that I feel are apt examples of typical poetry written in World War 1. Poetry throughout this period of time, share similar qualities of which I hope to explore further, one of these qualities is the recurring theme of the glorification of war. The themes of early war poetry tend to same themes that reoccur in most poems. These themes are glory, honour, duty, patriotism and a united front against adversary. All four poems seem initially different, in tone, language, and writing techniques, but all glorify war. I intend to explore how the different writing techniques used in the poems portray the same message, and how their poem glorifies war in its own way. World War 1 was the first major war to affect Britain’s people and the urgency of recruitment for the war created influence for many poets who were opinionated about the war; the result was extreme propaganda poetry. Many of these poets later changed their approach to writing due to the tragedies of war, and although the poems are more reflective and respectful, they still promote war as a worthy cause for the understood tragedies. The war also created many poets, soldiers who use poetry as an outlet for their thoughts these poems were usually brutally honest, reflective very emotive. Then towards the very end of the war poems became to bare the truth about war, poets found the deaths were to great to justify the glory of them. The poems depicted horrific images of war and mocked people who had previously glorified war.

 In the early stages of war, poet’s attitudes towards war were positive; many thought the results of war would outweigh the suffering that would occur during. This was due to the fact they had not experienced anything like this and did not know what to expect. They expressed this attitude in the poetry written. Many poets felt very patriotic towards England and felt England had come together to fight a common cause this is reflected by the use of patriotic imagery and language. Poems like ‘Who’s for the Game?’ and ‘The Soldier’ make the patriotism a poignant aspect of the poem, whereas rendezvous and ‘In Flanders Field’ are reflective and sentimental and display patriotism. ‘Who’s for the Game?’ does this by use of its ordering tone, guilt and shame tactics to persuade the reader into thinking the same and in turn feel more patriotic towards England.

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‘Who’ll give its country a hand?’ the repetitive use of who’ll/who creates an interrogating tone to coincide with the rhetorical questions. ‘The Soldier’ creates similar feeling but in a different way, it does it by the continual use of the personification of England.

‘A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,’ the dust being the soldier, English man, and England personified as its mother. In this first few years of war realism was sparsely use in poetry war was depicted as an event that would change a man for the better and horrendous truth of war was forgotten this ...

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