Trace the History of ‘The Old Lie’ from before and throughout the First World War, from enthusiastic patriotism to cynical disillusionment.

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Trace the History of ‘The Old Lie’ from before and throughout the First World War, from enthusiastic patriotism to cynical disillusionment.

When the word war is mentioned, the first thing that comes to most people’s heads are the horrific scenes of the First World War.  However, some people still feel it is a great honour to fight and die for your country.  Wilfred Owen, a war poet, described this view as ‘The Old Lie’.  Poetry has become more and more popular in the past couple of years, and it is possible that war poetry is often read as it deals with strong feelings and the difficulties of conflict that we still experience today.  Poetry will make most people think of love and really boring stuff so where did war poetry suddenly come from?  Well, poets found that in order to get the perfect ‘Romantic Moment’, you had to go to the battlefield, so more and more poets went into war and wrote poems describing the war they fought in.  Most poets did no die, but they wrote many poems about how good it was to die for your country, ‘The Old Lie’.

   The Old lie ‘Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori’ (dying for your country is glorious).  There are many poets who agreed and disagreed with this view.  Alfred Tennyson disagreed to this with his poems, ‘The Revenge’ and ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’.  Another Poet who disagreed with this was Rupert Brooke, he really wanted to fight and die for his country and have a glorious death.  Wilfred Owen on the other hand agrees with this view as he made it up during the horrific scenes he saw in the First World War.

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   Most people believed it was glorious to die for king and country.  And, to an extent, it was, in the old days when war was very different.  There were no guns and soldiers fought with swords and other hand-to-hand weapons.  However, the First World War was a very different war.  Guns had been invented and heavy artillery was developed a lot more.  Soldiers then faced a new kind or war; trench warfare, it was the only way to protect yourselves from guns and it was not glorious at all.  Other weapons had also been invented like poison gas, ...

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