Attitudes to War in 'Dulce et Decorum est' and 'Drummer Hodge'.

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POETRY ASSIGNMENT

ATTITUDES TO WAR

Life wasn’t easy for soldiers in the war as Wilfred Owen and Thomas Hardy express strongly in their legendary poems ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ and ‘Drummer Hodge’.  Peter Porter writes about the situation people may find themselves in when in, his poem ‘Your Attention Please’, he describes an announcement concerning a nuclear Rocket Strike.

Wilfred Owen died at the age of 25 and was killed seven days before the end of World War 1.  He is regarded as one of the most well-known war poets of the 20th Century, having written an astonishing 110 poems.  Under the influence of Romantic, early 19th Century poets such as Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley, Owen produced ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ which revealed the truth behind war, the grief and suffering caused.  Wilfred Owen wanted to dismiss the idea of romance as a motivation to fight in the war; young men believed that fighting in the war would make them heroes and that girls would be passionate about them.  Of course many men didn’t have an option in the matter: wives and girlfriends chose not to stay with their man if they didn’t fight in the war, so men were forced to join up.  The fact that their partner wouldn’t stick by them was one reason but if they didn’t join the whole society would look down on them with disgrace: they weren’t men if they didn’t fight for their country.

        “Dulce Et Decorum Est” speaks about the severe drowsiness of the soldiers on their way back from the front line and the sudden panic caused when the soldiers are hit unexpectedly with a gas attack. The poem begins with a simile, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks”.  This indicates the extent of the load the men had to carry with them and the weariness of the men.  “…under sacks” gives us a vivid picture of the heaviness and feeling of the soldiers’ uniforms.  The second line brings in the aural aspects of suffering by using words like “coughing” and “cursed”.  “We cursed through sludge” shows the intense deepness of the mud, which weakens the men and causes them to swear.  

Owen tries to make the readers feel pity for the men and does this extremely well by saying “All went lame, all blind”.  This gives us the image that men couldn’t see or hear correctly.  He uses the metaphor “Drunk with fatigue” to illustrate the tiredness of the men.  Stanza one ends on a note of warning; the danger of which the soldiers are unaware, as they can’t hear properly.

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The first and second verses are all to do with the visual and oral images of the soldiers and the ironic sense that the men are on their way back from the front line so they should be in less threat, yet this is where one man is killed.

        The next verse begins with a shout of danger:  “Gas! Gas! Quick boys.”  “Ecstasy” is used paradoxically; it shows the speed and panic of the men as they know how important it is to get their helmets on and yet their fingers fail them.  The poet tricks the reader by saying ...

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