To create a Juxtaposition of Christian and Roman gods, this links to the invasion of England by the Romans, but now England is the invader.
Throughout the poem Henry constantly stresses that he does not care for the material spoils of war.
“I am not covetous for gold” “Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost.”
He also explores the 7 deadly sins, showing that he is not greedy,
“Such outward things dwell not in my desires.”
Henry addresses them in almost a brotherly way, so he is a king that the soldiers can actually relate to, instead of just taking orders from. The only thing King Henry desires is honour,
“But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive”
This shows that even the King could break commandments, and therefore everyone should follow in his footsteps.
Henry also constantly voices the compassion he has for his men.
“No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour”
Henry calls his soldiers family, as they are all linked by blood and the common cause, this would reassure the soldiers because he thinks of them as more than just fodder for the great machine of war. He reiterates this quote with,
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;”
This line echoes in time, it was one that even Winston Churchill used. It’s intention then was almost the same as King Henry’s: to urge his troops to keep fighting without fail, and also to reinforce the point that he thought every soldier as a part of his family.
“God’s peace!” is a very ironic quote, seeing as Henry is asking for peace when the war he is fighting in was fuelled by violence and hatred.
Henry despises cowards, and he employs many clever persuasive techniques to separate the cowards from the warriors.
“Rather proclaim it …That he which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart; his passport shall be made and crowns for convoy put into his purse.”
King Henrys tone changes from being friendly and pleasant, to definite and cold. “Proclaim it” is an imperative, so he is ordering all the soldiers who cannot fight without fear to leave. Henry is so keen to have an army free of cowards that he would even pay to let them leave.
“We would not die in that man’s company, That fears his fellowship to die with us.”
By using the personal collective pronoun “We” he separates the individuals, and even considers then unworthy to die with, let alone fight next to.
To further rouse the troops, King Henry incorporates a story about Saint Crispian - the patron saint of tradesmen – within the poem/speech. Crispian is a saint that every ordinary working man can relate to, it was also on Saint Crispian’s day that the battle was fought.
“He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand a tip-toe when the day is named”
Henry gives a religious reference to the Apocalypse, implying that if they live through the battle, not only will they gain everlasting honour, but also their names would live on forever.
“…then shall our names. Familiar in the mouth as household words, be in their flowing cups freshly remembered”
Every year on Saint Crispian’s day everyone would sit and toast to their names
The soldier’s story would go on from then until the end of the world, perpetuated by the retelling through generations of families.
Henry extends the metaphor of his blood ties with the soldiers, with,
“For he to-day that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother.”
This would incite the troops further as even the commoners would think they were likely to be given titles if they fought with the King, and whatever they did, they will be forgiven. Henry’s voice turns cold again with,
“And Gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhood’s cheap.”
“Gentlemen” is a play on words; he is really calling the men back in England weak and feeble. All the men back in England will wish they had fought, as they will forever be known as cowards amongst heroes.
During World War One, Europe was divided into two great alliances: Great Britain, France and Russia on one side and Germany, Austro-Hungary and Italy on the other. Each formed a pact to support and defend each other. Kaiser Wilhelm II wanted to create a ‘place in the sun’ for himself: he redeveloped his navy and army and went on the retake the states of Alsace and Lorraine on the French/German border. This invasion kick-started the Entente defence, and started the first major conflict of the 20th Century.
Weapons of war had greatly improved by the time of the First World War, machine guns and poison gas were the major arms. The new machine guns could fire hundreds of rounds per minute, as opposed to the manual guns that could only manage around 10. Poison gas was used for the first time by the French in the first month of the war, August 1914, they fired tear-gas grenades against the Germans. The main types of gas used were chlorine and phosgene, with mustard gas being developed later in the war.
Most military offensives ended with few gains and enormous casualties. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the British Army lost around 20,000 men. The offensive cost the Allies over half a million casualties but only penetrated 12km at most into German lines.
The media was one of the most improved devices during the First World War; Television could now transmit the terrible conditions and casualties that soldiers faced on both sides. As cameras were now small enough to be carried by a single person, war reporters could film from their trenches, the destruction and horror around them. Newspapers were also an important media device as they published the latest news, along with the propaganda that swamped the nation.
Wilfred Owen was a famous World War One English poet whose work was characterised by his anger at the cruelty and waste of war. Owen was born 18 March 1893, and in 1915 he enlisted in the British army and was commissioned in the Manchester Regiment in June 1916. After spending the remainder of the year training in England, he left for the front. The experience of trench warfare brought him to rapid maturity and his poems written after August 1917 expose the brutality of war. In May he was caught in an explosion and was diagnosed with shellshock. He was evacuated and sent to a hospital in Edinburgh. While there he met the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who already had a reputation as a poet and shared Owen's anti-war views. Sassoon revolutionized Owen's style and his conception of poetry. He returned to France in August 1918 and was awarded the Military Cross in October for bravery. However, on 4th November he was killed whilst attempting to lead his men across the Sambre canal at Ors. The news of his death reached his parents on 11th November 1918: Armistice Day.
Dulce et Decorum est was probably one of Owen’s most renowned works. It is a direct retort to Jessie Pope’s “Who’s for the game?” Owen condemned her poems and morals, and his poems gave a true insight into the realities of war. The title refers to the context of the poems honest and hard hitting account, used here to attack bogus propaganda.
Dulce et decorum est takes a sonnet form with an ABAB rhyme, and iambic pentameter. The first stanza uses a very emphatic tone; the words are almost ‘spat out’. The poem starts of with an ironic simile.
“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks…coughing like hags”
It is ironic that the youth of today; the fittest and strongest group of humans, are being compared to beggars, as months in a war zone have physically and mentally destroyed them. Finally, the men can take the torture no more,
“Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, and towards our distant rest began to trudge.”
“Turned our backs” signifies that the men are retreating; they suffer ignominious public shame as they are betraying their own country. The “distant rest” may signify that they are already walking to their own unimportant deaths, and they can finally find peace and comfort after their time spent in the battlefield.
Both Dulce et decorum est and Before Agincourt start of on the theme of death, however Shakespeare portrays death as something patriotic and heroic, even hinting that none of the soldiers will die. Whereas Owen has the more literal view that; in a war, there are no survivors left unscarred. The soldiers in Dulce have been transformed into robots, without regard for their own wellbeing, they will keep on obeying orders.
“Men marched asleep… But limped on, blood shod. Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.”
The soldiers senses are dulled, they are so tired that they keep falling asleep on their feet. Horses are “shod”, the soldiers are being dehumanised, with animalistic features. The hoots of the cannons are personified to sound like derisive mocking laughter.
In this next sextet the rhythm speeds up, it draws the reader into the action with,
“Gas! GAS! - - An ecstasy of fumbling”
This line shows the rigid fear of the solders as they realise they are being subjected to a gas attack, their training kicks in and they manage to fit their gas masks on; but someone had not done it in time.
“Someone still was yelling out and stumbling”
The sibilance in this line replicates the sound of gas, a hissing sound. It also reflects the confusion of the soldiers, as they cannot see clearly,
“Flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…”
“Through the misty panes, as under a green sea. I saw him drowning”
The soldier looks like he is being burned from the inside and the ellipsis allows the reader to imagine what is happening. The soldier is being looked upon by his friends through the safety of their gas masks, and they know there is nothing that they can do. The full stop brings the reader back into the poem as he separates the next couplet.
“In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”
Wilfred Owen uses this couplet to explicitly emphasise the realities of war; and what the soldiers have to go through every day, he pictures the thought as a recurring nightmare, as it is in the present participle. The friends feel a great sense of guilt, as they cannot save their comrade. The word “guttering” is used in the sense of a candle flame being snuffed out: the soldier is in a flickering state between life and death.
In this last stanza, Owen condemns all the writers of bogus propaganda; many of which have never even been in a war zone. By using the 2nd person, “you” he describes the awful things that writers like Jessie Pope would have seen. He again uses an emphatic tone, which mirrors the first stanza.
“And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
Like a devil’s sick of sin”
The effective alliteration shows that the affected soldier lacks control of his movements. Owen also uses the irony that even the devil is tired of sinning, and it gives the impression that war is hell on earth.
“The blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer”
Wilfred Owen gives the impression that before the men went to war, they were pure, war has corrupted them. He also uses cancer to symbolise the fact that to survive from a gas attack was impossible. Owen addresses all the writers of bogus propaganda with,
“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest, to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old lie”
Owen uses children as pure, uncorrupted symbols of innocence: and that only by propaganda would the children be corrupted and lied to. “Zest” is another reference to Jessie Pope, since her poem compared war with joy. The ‘old lie” is deceit, which is perpetuated by propaganda.
In Before Agincourt, Shakespeare is saying that, if you live through war, you will gain everlasting glory and honour. He keeps an upbeat mood throughout the poem and this would carry through to the men who heard the speech: they would go into battle with no fear in their hearts. Shakespeare made me feel like war was all about the patriotism and loyalty that came with defending your country - and not being a coward - rather than all the violence that came with it. Had I been a soldier at the time of war, I would have much preferred Shakespeare’s poem as it would help you forget about the bloodshed that would come after.
As Wilfred Owen had been a real soldier in the Great War, Dulce et Decorum est give a rather more honest view, Owen is saying that war is not what it has been pictured in the newspapers or television, it costs countries many millions of lives, and yet the public do not know the truth. Dulce has a rather darker mood, seeing as it deals with the death of a comrade from gas. As a person, I would much prefer this poem to Before Agincourt as it paints a truthful picture about war and the horrors involved. It made me feel like war was a useless action that countries have to take when most of the time they could save the lives of our innocent soldiers.
