Comparison between Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" and Thomas Hardy's "Drummer Hodge".
Comparison between Rupert Brooke’s “The Soldier” and Thomas Hardy’s “Drummer Hodge”. Rupert Brook’s “the soldier” and Thomas Hardy’s “drummer hodge” share the same theme, however their individual perceptions about the war are very different and are depicted through their poems. Rupert Brook’s inspirational poem “the soldier” was written in 1914 and Brooke speaks from the first person as a soldier in World War I, as the simple title reveals. Brooke composed this poem before encountering the war itself, although he never did a get a chance to do so as he deceased before he got the opportunity. As compared to many other war writers such as Owen and Siegfried who fought in the war, Brooke’s concept about war was very positive. The soldier proves Brooke’s point of view. In The Soldier the author embodies the persona of an English soldier who anticipates encountering death in war. When this trooper does die, he asks not that his country be sorrowful for his death, but that they consider that the piece of earth "corner of a foreign field" that his body lies on be considered won for England "is for ever England". As his dead body decays into dirt or dust, that dirt will become rich because it came from an English body. England once "bore" this soldier's body, loved him, educated
him, offered his fresh English air, and landscape to walk through, and at one time cleansed him with its blessed waters and dried him off with the "suns of home." The soldier's heart will be cleansed of the wickedness that the war has inflicted upon it "all evil" by the death, and although his body will be nothing but a thought in God's mind, "a pulse in the eternal mind" his heart will go out to his beloved and glorious country, England. His death will bring hope and peace to the hearts of the English peoples still back in the ...
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him, offered his fresh English air, and landscape to walk through, and at one time cleansed him with its blessed waters and dried him off with the "suns of home." The soldier's heart will be cleansed of the wickedness that the war has inflicted upon it "all evil" by the death, and although his body will be nothing but a thought in God's mind, "a pulse in the eternal mind" his heart will go out to his beloved and glorious country, England. His death will bring hope and peace to the hearts of the English peoples still back in the homeland "under an English heaven". The Soldier in the traditional form of the fourteen lines of iambic pentameter divided into an octave and a sestet. Rupert Brook’s The Soldier can be seen as an important and patriotic document of preparation for war. Brooke intended for the poem to inspire patriotism in the English in World War I, and he wished for The Soldier to be easily understood by everyone, thereby avoiding any heavy metaphorical meanings to the poem. The diction is simple, as any heavy wording might hinder the author's patriotic message from being relayed to the reader. Primarily, the author emphasizes his country as some kind of paradise, as is most clearly indicated in line fourteen, "In hearts at peace, under an English heaven." Brooke personifies the country of England as a mother, and the fallen soldier is her child. Just as a mother bares her child, takes care of it, and loves it, so England does for the soldier. "A dust whom England bore, (as a mother gives birth to her child) shaped, as a child, as a child is shaped in his or her mother's womb) made aware, (as a child is taught at an early age by his or her mother) gave, once her flowers to love." Just as a mother provides comfort, safety, and lover for her child, so the country of England has done for its "child," this soldier. England is compared to a heaven on Earth: as a safe haven that the English soldier can look forward to returning to after wartime. After the young soldier's body has died, his heart enters a heaven, and that heaven is for this soldier, England. His heart is at peace, as in paradise, as the author mentions in line fourteen; "In hearts at peace, under an English heaven." Rupert Brooke employs a gentle or peaceful tone in The Soldier so as to emphasize the peace that death will bring him. This particular thought of his is very much similar to Lord Byron’s Stanzas, who would go anywhere to fight in war and “get knighted”. He avoids the gruesome descriptions of war unlike many of the other poets such as Owen, Sassoon, and Rosenberg who also wrote about the war at the time, but they had fought in the war. The peaceful tone provides some optimism to a somewhat pessimistic event: the death of a young soldier, which Thomas Hardy’s “drummer hodge” greatly mourns about. Gentle images such as the "flowers to love" and the glorious picture of the English countryside, including the "rivers" and the "suns of home," emphasize the peaceful tone. The sestet provides an optimistic tone of blissful peace as well, with phrases such as "dreams as happy as her day," "laughter," and "an English heaven." The last line especially embodies the gentle tone of the poem, with the phrase, "and gentleness, in hearts at peace." On the other hand Thomas Hardy’s views on war are not as pleasing as are Brooke’s. Hardy tells a tale of “drummer hodge” who an Englishman died in South Africa, during the Boer War. Thomas wrote war poetry years after world wars had been fought. He just like Brooke never fought in any war and his writing is solely out of his own knowledge and opinions. Drummer Hodge, this young lad died for a cause he did not understand. On top of this when he died, his body was carelessly without the respect of the dead was thrown flung into a ditch called grave. Hodge is given no headstone to mark the site of his burial, and the only landmark to show the position of his grave is the “kopje crest/That breaks the veldt around”. The foreignness, to Hodge, of his resting place is emphasised by the use of Afrikaans terms such as “kopje” and “veldt”, and by the strangeness, to him, of the stars that rise nightly over his grave. “Young Hodge” from Wessex- England, deserved to be buried in England, where his service to the country would be acknowledged. Yet, despite his ignorance, Hodge will now be a part of the South African veldt forever. His remains will nourish the roots of “some Southern tree”. The imagery that Hardy uses, emphasis on nature, “southern trees” and “strange stars”. This fact stresses further on the peculiarity and embarrassment of being buried in a foreign land. On the contrary for Brooke, to die in any other place would be honourable, as he would make give the soil where he is buried English nutrients and eventually turn it into England (metaphorically). Hardy in his works echoes the torture and the distress the war gives, just like how Owen does in “disabled”. Truly one of the few optimistic poets of the time, Brooke left an example that many others after him chose not to follow i.e. to say that The Soldier is one of the very few optimistic poems written. Where as Drummer Hodge on the other hand follows the typical theme of the horrors and epithets of the war. Personally I admire both the poems equally. Both, the soldier and the drummer die serving their country but one holds the charm of an innocent soldier enthusiastic about being killed in a foreign land on duty and the other mourns on a death of a young drummer who is disrespectfully thrown in an unmarked ditch in a foreign land.