By What Means Do The Poets in These Five War Poems Convey Their View Of War?

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By What Means Do The Poets In The Poems You Have Studied Convey Their View Of War?

        We have studied five poems of that only two poems- “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “Who’s For The Game” are pro-war the other three are anti-war. “Who’s For the Game” is a poem aimed at all those young men at the time of the First World War to try and get them to enrol in the army. It talks about the war, as a fun game and that you should join with your mates as a bit of a laugh and kill some Germans while you are at it. In the first verse Jessie Pope the poet who wrote the poem compares the war to a game of rugby with lines such as “who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid”. This puts the idea in the readers head that only strong tough rugby player will be able to fight for their country and that only the weak men who are scared stay behind while everyone else has the fun and gets praised and cheered. In the second and third verse they use the idea of inspiring guilt in the men into joining the army by saying such things as “Who’ll give his country a hand” it personifies the country as a human that is in a fight and you are the only person that can help it. It also uses the idea of all your mates going and having all the fun without you and you being left behind. It uses ballad rhythm very well to get the reader to read it in an up beat way like a song or a chant.

        “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is also the other pro-war poem. It’s a poem about a cavalry charge in the Crimean war that goes on a suicide charge to their deaths because a mistake was made in the communication between the officers. This poem is all about how the cavalrymen were prepared to charge to their deaths for Britain and because of this they become heroes. It starts with a use of feet in the rhythm it uses anapaestic diameter. This gives the idea of hooves galloping “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward,” This rhythm is broken in the third line, the poet does this to emphasize the word “Death” as it is an important word in this poem. In the second verse the poet expresses that the cavalry were oblivious to the situation they would be in soon as they rode into the valley, “Not tho’ the soldiers knew someone had blundered.” There is a sense of patriotism, as they do not ask why they just do, “Theirs not to reply, theirs not to reason why Theirs but to do and die,” In the third verse the poet emphasizes the fact that they are trapped by repeating the word cannon to the left to the right and in front of them this works and brings up he idea of despair. It also personifies death as a horrible monster that has big powerful jaws, “Boldly they rode and well, into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell.” In the fourth verse the poet stresses the fact that even though the cavalry was greatly out numbered they still went in ‘all guns blazing’ as the saying goes, with the sabres in the air fearless. It also talks about the amount of men at the end of each verse it talks of there being six hundred at the start of the poem “Rode the six hundred” but as we go through the poem the number slowly depletes “Then they rode back but not the six hundred.” At the end of the poem they tell us to honour them, “Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!”

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        The next three poems are all anti-war programs ‘Drummer Hodge’ is a poem written by Thomas Hardy it is a poem about The Boar War were they used to hire under age drummers that were too young to join the army to fight but they used to join so that they could play the drums for the soldiers. In this case there is a young boy that loses his life along with a lot of other boys. “They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest uncoffined-just as found” this is the first line in this poem and it uses the word ...

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