‘Dulce ET Decorum Est.’ and ‘Disabled’ are realistic poems and ‘into battle’ and ‘who’s for the game’ are patriotic poems. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est.’ and ‘disabled’ were both written by Wilfred Owen who was in the war and had experience of the war. Julian Grenfell who had no experience of war wrote the poem ‘into battle’. Jessie Pope who also had no experience of the war wrote ‘ who’s for the game’. Both poems ‘who’s for the game’ and ‘ into battle’ were used and taken as recruiting poems which would try and encourage young men to join and fight for the country.
‘ Who’s for the game’ is a patriotic poem used to encourage young men to join the war. Jessie Pope uses a rhetorical question to persuade young men to fight for their country. Jessie pope also uses another persuasive device that is to write in ‘slang’ since this will appeal more to young men. The title of the poem is a metaphor because the word game is a metaphor because the word ‘game’ is a metaphor for war. Jessie Pope uses the word game to make it sound like fun and care free also making it sound like a type of competition. Jessie pope uses rhetorical questions to persuade and manipulate the audience.
The rhyme and rhythm add to the tone of the poem. By making the poem rhyme it seems more like a song and since songs are meant to be happy. The audience reading the poem will also be happy and so they will think war is a happy place and so they will join the war.
Jessie pope also uses shame to persuade young men to join by using words such as “ And who thinks he’d rather sit tight?” this basically means who would rather be a coward.
Jessie pope uses quotes like these “the red crashing game of a fight” to make the war seem like a rough sport, such as rugby. This will appeal to young men because all they are going to think is that this is like a game and everything is going to be really easy.
Jessie pope had no experience of battle. This affects her poem because unlike to other 3 poems, Jessie pope had no experience of war so she actually never knew what the realities of war were like.
Julian Grenfell wrote ‘Into battle’, Julian Grenfell was a soldier with little experience of war since he died just after the poem was published.
‘ Into battle’ is about the war. It is a patriotic poem since it does not show the realities of war. Julian Grenfell compares war to spring making it sound nice and there’s nothing wrong with war, spring is also the struggle of life to survive.
Julian Grenfell describes nature giving everything to the soldiers, like nature gives the soldiers protection and nature gives the soldiers warmth this motivates the soldiers because the soldier thinks he has got all the protection he needs also if the soldier dies in the course of the war nature sends the soldiers to heaven where he will be amongst “all the bright company of heaven”
Julian Grenfell uses personification to show that nature cares about the soldier by saying “the woodland trees that stand together, they stared to him each on a friend they gently speak in the windy weather they guide to the valley and the ridges end”
