The poet even suggests that poppies eventually take over the dead men and grow form the mens’ “veins”. During the war, there was a myth that poppies thrived on the l=blood of the dead men. Rosenberg introduces this myth into his poetry and says that poppies’ “roots are in mens’ veins/drop, and ever dropping,” Maybe he is trying to imply that men in war are destined to die as poppy roots are already in their blood ready to grow.
The poet uses the past participle “dropping” to imply the war is on going and continuous. There is a hopeless atmosphere created towards the end of the poem when the narrator describes his “poppy “ in is “ear is safe,/just a little white with dust.” White dust can associate with death could mean that the poppy is not going to conquer him because it is already starting to die as it is covered in white dust. However, I think this meaning of the last two lines is unlikely as already throughout the poem, it gives a sense of despair. It may mean the opposite; the poppy is in his ear ready to grow from the narrator’s “veins” through the white ash, the white ash may be a symbol of the death destined for him.
You could say that Rosenberg treats the subject of war as being uncompassionate and mercifulness to the men. The poet treats the poem as being very pessimistic and sad. He wrote ‘Break of Day in the Trenches’ three days before he got killed. You could say that the sad atmosphere in the poem reflects Isaac Rosenberg’s life in general. He was born into a working-class Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia. He enlisted in 1915 to provide him money for his family without his family knowing. He had said that patriotic principles had little or nothing to do with his volunteering for military service. However this money did not reach them. Rosenberg suffered a lot during fighting in the war as his religion often made him discriminated against. This may have caused the poet to believe that four main subjects that are the one of the most significant in the war are; darkness, stillness, rats and Germans as they are often explained in further detail after dashes, for example “ A queer sardonic rat-.”
During the detailed descriptions related to the main points the poet has made, information is somehow listed with use of many commas and the one stanza structure. As there is only one long stanza and no definite rhyming scheme it gives the effect of the poet is writing about all the thoughts that the narrator thinks of. Rosenberg probably did this because he wanted the reader to hold onto the image of war as long as possible.
Rosenberg treats the war as devastation and destruction to men’s freedom and the earth as he describes the world as a person with bowels and its field as “torn” like fabric.” The metaphorical use of these verbs could be used as the poet wanted to personify the world as a soldier who is exhausted and mangled. He describes men as non-living things who are as if told what to think and do-“bonds to the whims of murder/sprawled in the bowels of the earth,” the word sprawled conveys a sense of uncare and the bowels suggests that they were forgotten about as they were deep in the earth. He once said that “the army is the most detestable invention on this earth and nobody but a private in the army knows what it is to be a slave.” This statement made by him supports his anger in his poem.
You could also say that Siegfred Sassoon also touches on the theme of men having no freedom in war in how poem “ at he Cenotaph.” However, unlike Rosenberg who said the freedom was taken away by warm Sassoon suggests that is man’s own “biological urge to readjust/ the Map of Europe”, which cause the miserable life of the soldiers.
Siegfred Sassoon also may have meant that the “Prince of Darkness” caused the men to fight each other. But I think Siegfred Sassoon’s main subject of the poem is to say that there is always going to be war as men are always to believe that war is “purgatorial/proof of the pride and power of being alive.” He wants to make a point that there us always going to be war as there is a “Prince of Darkness” that is in every man and makes him want to fight.
Like Isaac Rosenberg, Sassoon makes the subject matter of the poem very subtle as he chooses to set the poem at the Cenotaph, where it is very tranquil and where people remember who fought in the war. The speech made by the Prince of Darkness is in the style of a prayer; something of which we think has words of goodness. This style that the speech is made in also contributes to the peaceful tone and atmosphere. The speech seems like a prayer when first looked at because it has words such as “O Lord” and demanding verbs such as “Make them forget”. The message given by the poet is very subtly hidden as the sinful message is hidden in the format of a prayer.
The poet’s emotional anger in the subject matter about war in ‘At the Cenotaph’ is very difficult to see; this is because a gentle atmosphere is used. Both poems use soft consonants and the use of words with lots of syllables; for example-“pride”, which contribute to the gentle atmosphere of the poem, hiding the anger made by the poet about the subject of war.
Siegfred Sassoon also creates a mysterious atmosphere by using a malicious message in a prayer.
When the reader first reads the poetry they are already confused as to why the “Prince of Darkness” is standing respectfully and “bare-headed” “ by the Cenotaph.” The reader expects the Prince of Darkness to do something wicked and not the opposite-respecting the dead.
You could say that Siegfred Sassoon makes the reader fall into a trap of thinking the Prince of Darkness is good by describing him being respectful of the dead. Sassoon leads the reader into thinking the “prayer” the Prince of Darkness has to make is full of wisdom by saying that he “offered” it, which is a sign of generosity.
This increases the suspense when the reader reads the prayer and he or she will be bewildered about what the message is actually about because it is telling the people to do all the wrong actions to war. Sassoon uses the oxymoron “blind vindictive peace” perhaps meaning that humans do not see (“blind”) that the “peace” being performed at the cenotaph will eventually end in revenge (“vindictive”).
You could say that the whole prayer is like an oxymoron as the sinful idea about war is put into a prayer, which supports the fact that Sassoon may have used this technique to make his message more subtle and shocking when the true character of the Prince of Darkness is revealed because he “laugh” at a respectful and sorrowful ceremony. “As he walked away I heard him laugh.”
The true personality of the Prince of Darkness is revealed in two separated lines (second stanza). You could say that this layout of the stanzas makes the ending more shocking as the information about the Prince of Darkness is totally unexpected. You could also say that the second stanza containing unexpected information is set out like that so the reader absorbs what is happening better, therefore making them more surprised when they find out about the true nature of the Prince of Darkness.
The poet puts this clause in between two full stops, which makes it more plain and emphatic when read. He also does not pause between the words “away” and “I” which also adds to the effect of the plainness of the line, which dumbfounds the reader more when the true personality of the Prince of Darkness is exposed.
Sassoon changes the rhyme scheme when he starts the prayer. Before and after the prayer the rhyme scheme is AA, BB in rhyming couplets, which makes an informal and perhaps makes it seem as if it’s in a child’s perspective as it fives a sense of a lively nature. The end-stopped lines at every other line also achieve this atmosphere and tone.
But during the prayer, the rhyming scheme change to A, B, A, B which gives it a more serious and formal tone, making the sinful message seem like a prayer. Sassoon probably intended to use this technique to achieve fooling the reader into thinking it is a prayer of wisdom.
The style of the prayer is also achieved using enjambment and semi-colons showing the prayer is on going and creates a silent atmosphere often found in places of prayer. It is also achieved by the sonnet form of the poem; ‘At the Cenotaph’ has fourteen lines, which makes it a sonnet and may have been used as on e of the many techniques to create subtly the real subject matter of the poem.
The tone of the poem is lively to begin and end but during the prayer it changes to a formal tone, This makes it seem to the reader that it is a normal respectful situation at the Cenotaph and makes it very mysterious and chockfull when it is no ordinary tome at the Cenotaph.
Siegfred Sassoon makes the words “war”, “memorial” and “Map of Europe” pronouns. He may have done this to make these words more significant to the reader. It may be what Sassoon thinks are the main things to do with war-the fighting over land and a memorial forgotten for its real meaning of being there.
But I think Sassoon has made these words into pronouns so that seem like things people can control and do not control. People do not control the real meaning the memorial, or the number of times they fight or the constant readjusting of the “Map of Europe”. I think this is why Sassoon made them into pronouns-the whole poem is about the uncontrollable urge to go to war. Siegfred Sassoon treats the subject of war as the fault of man and is angry that man cannot resist the tempetation of war, which he thinks is the proff and pride of power over land.
Like Rosenberg and Sassoon, Owen shows that his anger about eh subject of war. However, the emotional anger about the war is not about the same matter as the other poets. Owens’s anger about the war is mainly about how people do not understand the terrible conditions of war and how he dislikes people encouraging patriosm in war.
This subject matter in the poem was deliberately written against Jessie Pope’s patriotic poems encouraging men to enlist. He relates her to “my friend” and asks her a rhetorical question “you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory” Dulce et decorum est pro patria mon”, after showing her a scene in war. This poem was written with the help of Siegfred Sassoon. Both poets met during the war in a hospital and they both were very angry with war. Siegfred Sassoon helped Owen to make this poem better, which is why it may contain subjects that Sassoon had brought in. This is probably why both poems have such a similar subject matter. However both poems convey the subject matter .
Unlike the previous two poets, Owen is very graphic and literal in making the reader understand the message wants to put forwards. You could say that he almost persuades the reader into an atmosphere of pity and disgust so that when he ends the poem by asking whether you would “tell with such high zest” to enlist to war, the reader will say no they have put into the state of mind the poets wants them to be.
Owen wants the reader to feel emotionally pitiful and sorrowful when he is describing the death of one man and tries to make it as imaginable and graphic as possible.
He uses similes to compare the soldiers to “old beggars under sack’s” and “hags”. This creates the image of the soldiers being old, dirty and weary. Because beggars and hags are uncared for it also supports the pitiful atmosphere within the poem that Owen may have intended to create.
Wilfred Owen uses similes that extremely vile to describe how the “gas” kills the soldiers in the most gruesome way imaginable.
“His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin.” The adjective “hanging” gives the impression of a dead face, making the atmosphere gruesome and fearful as the poet brings you close to the dying man’s face. The simile “like a devil’s sick of sin” supports Owens’s idea of war being extremely terrible, as he describes the devil being sick of sinning.
“flound’ring like a man in fire or lime” creates a pititful and painful image, which also supports the atmosphere. Wilfred Owen contrasts words such as “vile incurable sores on innocent tongues.” The contrast between “vile” and “innocent” makes the reader pity the effects of war even more because it is a sign of evil conquering well. Wilfred Owen actually describes the death of a man in a lot detail unlike Rosenberg who gives the reader a sense of a lot of men dying in war” sprawled deep into the bowels of the earth.” The close description of how the man died in pain makes it very personal to the reader making them emotionally pitiful at the vast number of deaths in war because they have actually seen how much pain each soldier goes through in death. Therefore, when the reader thinks about the many soldiers who died this way the emotional impact is great.
The poet even uses similes to describe the adjectives. This may gave been due that he wanted specifically how the reader pictured the soldier to die. Owen wanted the reader to know about the vileness of the gas by describing the “froth-corrupted lungs/obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud”.
The structure of the poem also supports the persuasive technique. Wilfred Owen has split the poem into four stanzas. In the fourth stanza you could consider it as the ‘re-consider’ part of the poem. He may have asked the rhetorical question to try and make people think different about if they had previously though tit to be not as terrible.
In the first stanza, it shows how “drunk with fatigue” and half-dead the soldiers; he believes that they “trudge” to their “distant rest.” He shoes that the soldiers no longer are energetic and patriotic as he write that they are “deaf even to the hoots of gas shells.”
The second stanza talks about how “an ecstasy of fumbling” leads to death. The metaphorical use of ecstasy makes it hard to believe that an accidental late timing of “fitting the clumsy helmets” when the “thick” “green” gas would lead to death. You could say that Owen uses this technique to stun readers with the consequences and causes of death such as accounted for in the poem.
The third stanza is probably short and secluded because Wilfred Owen wanted the readers to stay on the scene as long as possible, which describes a dying man who “plunges” at the narrator. The use of commas after each phrase temporarily pauses each image shown and seems to give the effect of slow motion captures in films. This is often significant or emphasising events that happen-in the poem the narrator is always re-seeing the death of the man-“In all my dreams.”
This may mean that the narrator (Owen) keeps dreaming and repeating the most devastating moment. Throughout the poem, Owen uses the past participle-“yelling”, “stumbling”, “floud’ring”, “drowning”, “guttering”, “choking.” These past participles are used to give the effect that war is on going. This may also be another subject matter of similar idea to the previous two poems studied; Wilfred Owen believes that war is on going. But Owens’s regular use of the past participle gives the effect that war is never ending whereas “at the Cenotaph” there is an impression that wars end but there are always going to be future wars.
The verbs of the past participle also contain hard consonants such as “guttering”, which aids to the merciless of war atmosphere of war. They also contain onomatopoeia; “guttering” which may have been used by the poet to create sound effects as well as graphical visual ones.
Wilfred Owen also uses the first person, which makes the account of the dying man more personal to the reader because it feels as if they are in the narrator’s position. You could also say that the tone create by the poem is very serious and directed towards the reader. This effect is achieved when the narrator talks to the reader by using the terms “you”. The tone of the poem helps the reader to take the subject matters discussed in the poem seriously so that after having read the poem the reader will dislike war and be pitiful in all those people involved in war.
Throughout the poem, the ends of the lines often are ended in enjambment, semi-colons, commas and dashes. This type of punctuation is also used in ‘Break of Day in the trenches”, which makes the effect of the many terrible events in war seem like a list and is on going.
The rhyme also contributes to the poem to makes it seem as if it is continuous. The rhyme scheme of A, B, A, B gives it a marching rhythm giving the effect of soldiers ever marching in war.
You could say that the punctuation has made the point made by the poet more significant; the poet plainly exposes the line “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” using a colon to introduce this ending. You could say that the isolation of the line at the end makes it more memorable and meaningful to the reader.
After having read the poem ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ I think the main subject matter of war Wilfred Owen wants to state is the misunderstanding of the severity of the pities of war. He wants to show his anger that people are being treated inhumanely by encouraging them to fight in the war when all their reward is their own death.
After reading all three poems, I have learned that most war poets feel angry about sending people to war when all they get in return is death; disliking people who have not experienced the hardship of war and thinking it is very patriotic. I have also learned that most war poets think that there will always be war because some people think war is unavoidable.
