In a poem written shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, Rupert Brooke romanticises a soldier’s death. The poem shows the idea of war being a duty and fulfilling is as romantically. This poem is naïve, idealistic and a romanticised personal view. He believes in the idea of ‘a foreign field’ and staying there for eternity and people shall ‘think only…. of me.’ He romanticises the idea of dying for his country and staying forever where he dies as ‘richer dust.’ He idealises the thought of when you die you’re at peace ‘and think, this heart, all evil shed away.’ He is imagining his own death as a soldier. Giving the idea of an ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate peace. He then continues the idea of the perfect sacrifice for his beautiful country by talking about what England has given him:
‘Her sights, her sounds…. and laughter…under an English heaven.’ This poet shows his personal view by continually repeating ‘England’ or ‘English’ which shows why he would die for his country, as he loves it so much.
Even after the war began, patriotic poetry of this nature continued to be written. Jessie Pope tried to persuade men to volunteer for the army in ‘Who’s for the Game?’ This poem was propaganda, which would have affected the minds of young men and encouraged them to join the army. The word ‘game’ is used throughout, which gives the idea of the war being fun or an adventure. The poem isn’t hiding anything about war, but still manages to be convincing; because she uses euphemisms rather than being direct. ‘Who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid?’ This shows how the war really is a challenge, but a good one. Propaganda is prominent throughout the poem and the poet used very tactful, persuasive language. ‘he’d rather sit tight.’ Which puts the idea into young men’s heads that they are cowards if they don’t join the war effort. This questioning of masculinity is used to close each stanza:
These questions that Pope asks the reader question the toughness and the masculinity of the men in a persuasive manner, as if to imply they are cowards if they do not join the war. The poem is also full of questions, but strongly suggests if you don’t join the war then you won’t be highly thought of. The idea of alternatives to manliness are again used:
‘Who would much rather come back with a crutch
Than lie low and be out of the fun.’
This shows that people would rather go to war and have something to show of their bravery than be sat at home. This poem very convincingly and shrewdly closes on a personal note directed at the individual: ‘She’s looking and calling for you.’ This points out to each of the readers that they are wanted to fight in the war.
Unlike these earlier writers, Wilfred Owen wrote from his own first-hand experience of the horrors of war. Owen was born the eldest of four children at Plas Wilmot, a house near in on 18 March 1893 of mixed and decent. He was educated at the Birkenhead Institute and at Shrewsbury Technical School, and discovered his vocation in 1903 or 1904 during a holiday spent in . Owen was raised as an Anglican of the evangelical school. His early influences included , and, as with many other writers of the time, the . Prior to the outbreak of , he worked as a private tutor teaching English and French at the in , .
On , he enlisted in the . For the next seven months, he was in training at Hare Hall Camp in . In January 1917 he was commissioned as a with . Owens started the war as a cheerful and optimistic man, but doring the two years of the war, he was changed forever. After some traumatic experiences, which included leading his platoon into battle and getting trapped for 3 days in a shell-hole, Owen was diagnosed as suffering from and sent to in for treatment. It was whilst recuperating at Craiglockhart. After returning to the front, Owen led units of the Second Manchesters on 1918 to storm a number of enemy strongpoints near the village of . Owen was killed in action on 4th November 1918, only one week before the end of the war. For his courage and leadership in the Joncourt action, he was posthumously awarded the .
Owen’s reflects the horrors of trench and gas warfare. His great friend, the contemporary poet had a profound effect on Owen's poetic voice. This is most significant in his most famous poem ‘Dulce et Decorum est.’
‘Dulce et Decorum est’ is a response to Jessie Pope’s poem of dying a glorified and heroic death for your country. Because Owen had experience was himself he was flabergasted at the extent of betrayl Pope was using to persuade young men to join the war. Owen wanted to expose the ture horror of war and the long-lasting mental, emotional and physical effects. He uses the title ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ with the line of Latin finished later in the poem ‘Pro patria mori.’ This means it is sweet and fitting to die for your country; which is ironic when you read the poem of the pain and suffering in doing so.
This poem starts as ‘we’ as if to draw the reader into the poem and make them at one with the soldiers. It then moves into ‘I’ as if explaining personal experince from war. The poem them finally changes frm past to present as if the person talking still experiences what happened in war – perhaps whilst sleeping, in a dream. This poem used viscous and dramatic lanuguae to empahsise the true reality of war.
The poem is about the ‘cursed’ strife of the British soldiers, meaning they are doomed to die as soon as they agree to go and fight. Their ‘blood-shod feet’ talks of them losing then boots but continuing through the pain and the posion of their innocent tongues’is telling the reader of the posioning of such young naïve men for the sake of fighting a war. In the first section, British soldiers are leaving the trenches after an exhausting span of duty. They stagger back to their ‘distant rest’. Unlike in the previous poems, the soldiers are desrcibed as ‘old beggars’ and ‘konck-kneed…hags’. The first stanza describes how the soldiers were ‘drunk with fatigue’ and ‘lame and blind’. The stanza also desrcibes the surroundings of the men ‘sludge’ and bombs being ‘dropped behind’. This creates a realistic image of what it would be like to be at war.
In the second stanza green fumes of posion ensue an ‘ecstasy of fumbling’. The soldiers are being posioned and they all are ‘clumsy’ and grab their gas masks to save their lives. One man doesn’t manage. All the other soldiers can do is watch him die. They hear him ‘yelling’, watch him ‘stumbling’ and ‘flound’ring’ and finally watch him ‘drowning’ until he dies. This is an insight into the conditions and horror that soldiers had to live through. This directly contradicted Jessie Pope’s view of a wonderful war from which soldiers would be heroic. But this poem shows how ‘incurable’ the pains of war really were.
The final stanza contains hideous comparisons, which present the real horrors of war. The ‘smothering dreams’ of the soldiers as they fling their dying friend on to the wagon of the dead. His ‘white yes writhing’ in his ‘hanging face’ and they must listen to the gargling of his ‘froth corrupted lungs’. Owen uses very graphic and dramatic similes to show the true angst and haunting sense in the situation. He makes a direct attack on Jessie Pope in the final few line of the stanza as he speaks of ‘incurable sores on innocent tongues’. He then directs the end of the poem to Pope;
‘My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To Children ardent for some desperate glory.’
The use of the word ‘children’ shows the naivety of the soldiers and their ‘innocent’ youth. It conveys the message that she aims at children to get glory if they partake in war. The children are ‘desperate’; this shows their excitement for adventure.
Owen also wrote poems such as ‘Futility’ and ‘Exposure’ which looked at the horrors of war and how pointless war and death was.
‘Futility’ describes the hope of a wonderful death and how soldiers often didn’t die in battle, but by the conditions you see Owen’s denial in death. The poem consists of two stanzas and like ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ describes death. This poem shows the idea of being awakes and then having the eternal sleep – death. It describes the death of one soldier in particular which could be likened to many ideal deaths. The sun ‘always awoke him….until this morning.’ The sun has now gone and ‘snow’ has come which means that his life has passed. Like the soldier who dies in ‘Dulce et Decorum est.’
‘Futility’ also uses the idea of contemplation; to provoke thoughts within its readers to discover the true horrors of war. ‘Futility’ speaks of the body being ‘still warm’ as the body in ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ was still alive. Both poems speak of the horrific realities of dealing with the dead or almost dead in war; their ‘limbs’ their ‘sides’. The main theme of this poem is the idea of an eternal ‘sleep’ which is in comparison to ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ that gives the idea of an eternal sleepless hell; ‘full-nerved’ ‘desperate glory’.
Another one of Owen’s poems which shows the true torture of war and can be compared to ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ is ‘Exposure’ which as the title says is about the exposure of the soldiers to the harsh weather and conditions of war.
This poem consists of four stanzas. The poem is written from the first person viewpoint of a soldier. The poem is filled with heartfelt phrases, which show the suffering of the soldiers. ‘Poignant misery’ and ‘shivering ranks’ are just some of the phrases, which show the true pain. The first and second stanza, like ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ talk about the struggle of the soldiers. The ‘silent…night’ and worries of ‘silence’. This continues through the second stanza, also like ‘Dulce et Decorum est; as it describes the movements and ways of the men; ‘watching…twitching.’
This poem continues to liken itself to ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ as It suddenly moves into the ‘flickering gunnery’ – the men come under attack. The soldiers question themselves, as Owen previously questioned Jessie Pope – ‘What are we doing here?’ This poem also has similarities to ‘Futility’ by talking about the weather; ‘rain soaks and clouds sag.’
The poem then repeats the idea of the soldiers coming under attach which does not happen in the two previous poems. ‘Bullets streak the silence; this evokes a sense of hurry and panic which is like ‘Dulce et Decorum est’, and again uses weather, the same that is in ‘Futility’ – ‘snow’.
These three poems by Wilfred Owen liken themselves to the task of evoking people’s thoughts on the harsh, but true, reality of war. He uses heartfelt phrases to describe the real horror experienced by young, innocent soldiers. Owen’s poems were like many poets of the time – written from personal experience.
The poems who wrote about war pre 1914 portrayed death in war as an ultimate sacrifice and a way to make your country and its people proud of you and give you honour. This is completely opposite to poets such as Wilfred Owen who wrote about war post 1914, from his own first hand experiences of it. He shows the truth of war and the horror it entails.