The language used reflects his feelings. He only ever uses one negative word, “evil”, and even this is used in the context of being “shed away”. It is almost an ode to England itself: “In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore.” The poem is rich in image-evoking language: “her flowers to love, her ways to roam.”
The poem is a Petrarchan sonnet as it is divided into an octave and a sestat. The break of thought allows the reader time to think about the poets words and absorb them in. The writer moves from one scene he is describing, England being a natural creation of beauty (“her flowers to love, her lands to roam”), on to England being alive, personifying England (“A pulse in the eternal mind”). Yet there is a continuing presence of the importance and power of England, and this is shown by the use of words such as “richer”, “blest by sun” and “English Heaven”. The form, structure and choice of language all work together.
Wilfred Owen contrasts to Brooke greatly in many different ways. He is famous for his poems dealing with the harsh realities of the First World War. “Anthem For Dead Youth” was written by Owen in response to certain patriotic poems creating illusions of war. Unlike “The Soldier”, Owen has structured his sonnet similarly to that of Shakespeare’s, but has include a break. The poem is starkly honest and brutal. This is evident in the use of language. In the first line he compares soldiers to cattle. This instantly creates the image of innocent, wandering creatures, destined for slaughter, fittingly appropriate. He repeats the word “Only” twice, at the beginning of two consecutive lines. This echoes the attitudes of the army generals, that they are “only” soldiers, dispensable. Owen also uses alliteration: “rifles’ rapid rattle”, creating sounds of the rifle. He compares elements found in a funeral with the reality of warfare: “demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them.” The church relations suggest Owen’s attitude toward God as well, that he feels he too has turned his back on the soldiers. Owen wants you to understand and feel what it was really like during the war.
The gap between the octave and sextet again show a continuing theme running through the poem but a slight change of direction. The theme of unnecessary death, but the soft, gentler language suggests a more subdue, tragic attitude: a pathos. “Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.” The imagery too is less harsh, conjuring images of a funeral in a church rather than a battlefield: “The pallor of girls’ brows shall be there pall; “Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds.” Owen seems to be in mourning himself, with a sense of ending closure created by the last rhyming couplet, “minds” and “blinds.”
A could contrast to Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem For The Doomed Youth” another of his poems entitled “Futility”. Owen’s anger is not at all visible here, and is positive in many ways. Owen is trying to say war and survival attempts are futile. Again, it is similar to the two previous poems in which an intentional break within the poem is used. The tone is immediately lighter. The words “gently its touch”, “whispering of fields” and “rouse” create an airy atmospheric mood. There almost seems to be a hint of hope in the first seven lines. But again, a new dimension is added after the caesura. The ongoing theme is light, and death: “Move him into the sun”, “fatuous sunbeams toil.” Where the first seven lines try to be upbeat, the second half appears to accept the “futility” of war life: “Was it for this the clay grew tall?”
From these three poems we can see that views on war from the front lines varied a great deal. Wilfred Owen was a man who felt cheated by war (Anthem For Doomed Youth), but he also knows about the pointlessness of war (Futility). Yet it is amazing how Brooke, in the same position as Owen, is able to see the honour in dying for one’s country (The Soldier).
Mark Brennan
