Dulce ET Decorum Est. is basically a poem that’s show the audience the negative and reality side to war in the First World War.
Wilfred Owen says that soldiers are physically destroyed by war they are ‘bent double like old beggars under sacks’. This simile shows and creates a shocking image of the debilitating effects of war where men aged and wearied by the horror of war.
The soldiers have fought the war so long and hard that they have become immune to the effect and punishment of the war. The fact that ‘men marched asleep’ and are ‘blind’ and ‘deaf’ is that there so subconscious they the do things without thinking.
Wilfred Owen shows his poem with horrific and disturbing images of pain and suffering by showing this he describes the soldiers as ‘obscene as cancer and as bitter as cud’ so basically his saying the outcome of being in the war and having to breath in that gas and how the soldiers feel when they have breathed it in.
Alfred lord Tennyson shows a positive and more sensible way of going into war and not the wrong way in such that you get your self killed by showing this he uses exclamation mark to show bravery and celebratory views Alfred has for the soldiers. The main way of showing this with exclamation marks is ‘forward the light brigade!’ ‘Noble six hundred!’
Alfred basically describe the ‘Noble six hundred!’ and ‘forward the light brigade!’ in the manor of saying that no matter what our country is what we’re fighting for and that’s what we will die for.
The imagery contrasts the brave soldiers with the ferocious nature of the battlefield; this is most obvious in stanza 3 from line 18 to 26.
This shows Tennyson understand that the war will be bloody and very violent towards the soldiers and the soldiers will have to fight with pride in order to win the war, and basically the soldier have and show tenacity in war ‘while horse and hero fell’
After all the warring and violent attacks the difference between both poems is that Wilfred Owen basically describes and informs you what happens in war and Alfred lord Tennyson describes and informs you how to go in to war so basically you get the general idea of war.
Also the momentum and encouragement Alfred shows will give soldiers the idea that if we go into war this is the way to go, and what Wilfred’s trying to say is that when you go into war don’t expect to go in and out you go in and fight
And at the end of it all I compare the 2 poems to football because Alfred’s poems is basically before the match saying what ma manager would say to encourage the team and at the end of the poem that’s what manager would honour us with if we win.
And then Wilfred’s poem is what my manager would say if the team was good and what we would expect from the good team so he is basically saying play with pride and go out there and win.
