The ideas used in ‘Peace’ try and persuade its audience – educated young men – to try and join the Army and fight for their country, to honor themselves and their family and fulfill their duty to God.
Brooke conveys the idea of a religious crusade in ‘Peace’ with the constant usage of ‘and’ which gives an old fashioned tone to the poem and makes it sound biblical.
In the first line of the poem:
“Now, God be thanked who has matched us with this hour,”
Brooke suggests the reader has been chosen by God to fight in his army, as Gods war is a war worth fighting; God is on our side; He has given youth an opportunity to fight to change the world and they should honor and thank Him.
Brooke continues with:
“and caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,”
Implying the young men have been given a chance to awaken from their sleeping lives, lives that are bland and boring. Now they have been awakened their lives with be exciting because they have been given a chance to do something great and different.
The soldiers were effectively thrown into the deep end when they went to war;
“to turn, as swimmers in to cleanness leaping,”
This is cleansing the world of evil when the chosen go to war.
Brooke talks about the people who stayed at home:
“Leave the sick hearts that honor could not move”
Talking about the cowards who did not go to war and are not worth your attention because if honor could not move them, nothing will.
The reader is better than them and should look down upon the ‘deserters’ and ‘half men’ suggesting that the cowards are half the man of the reader because they wont fight, they are not real men.
The second part of ‘Peace’ the sestet conveys that even if the writer meets death, instead of death being an enemy the soldier will find him as a friend, for death will bring him to gods rest where there is no suffering, even though he is not breathing and his heart is not beating. He is at piece and his agony has ended.
The two poems ‘Who’s For The Game’ and ‘Peace’ have many similarities; but just as many differences.
Both Jessie Pope and Robert Brooke encouraged young men to fight but only Pope was paid for her work, where it was published in the Daily Mail. Although she was often called an ‘armchair enthusiast’, Brooke was said to be a ‘soldier poet’ although he targeted more educated young men compared to Pope’s working class lads, who were persuaded by her common, informal and colloquial language, combined with her jolly and up-beat rhythm.
Brooke’s language is serious and more formal than Pope and is used to convey the message that recruits should be proud to die for their country and to serve God, which is frequently mentioned in ‘Peace’. Reassuring the audience that fighting is what God wants you to do and is on your side- so therefore it is a worthy battle; that we should thank him for this great honor and privilege so that we can change the world.
The horrors of war were unknown at the beginning as the public had not been to war for a long time and were unaware of the slaughter and massacre that war would bring. When thousands rushed to join up, they assumed the war would last only a few months and would be over by Christmas.
They believed it was an adventure that would take them around the world and did not think of the consequences.
As eyewitness accounts filtered down to the public back in England of the horrific circumstances, such as the lack of food, bad weather, poor living conditions and disease ridden trenches, people started to change their perspective of the war; they began to realize what the war was actually like.
‘Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori’ means it is sweet and fitting to die for your country. This is the title of the poem and the last line, written in Latin, which is a dead language. It implies that throughout time the meaning will always stay the same and perhaps the poem will belong to the past. Because it is written in a dead language it conveys that some of the ideas of chivalry and bravery, honor and glory are dead with this language as well.
For it to be ‘sweet and fitting to die for your country’, when men are dying with no recognition, it is very ironic for Owen to title his poem to mock and make a joke of old values. Of course the reality of war was very different as the solders were dying obscene and terrible deaths. Owen wanted to illustrate how vile and inhumane war really was. Meanwhile the British press and public comforted themselves with the fact, terrible though it was that all the young men dying in the war were dying noble, heroic deaths. The story of the poem starts with the solders walking back from fighting to their place of rest which should be safe but ironically there is a gas attack, so all the solders put on their gas masks but unfortunately one soldier couldn’t find his or didn’t have it and he choked and died. Afterwards his body gets put onto a wagon with other bodies to be taken away. The dead body haunts the poet in his dreams and nightmares, one in particular of the soldier plunging forward at Owen, the illusion that the dream was real.
Supposedly this sequence of events happens in all his dreams but obviously the same dream occurs to him again and again.
Owen starts his poem with;
“bent double, like old beggars under sacks”
Implying that the soldiers are old and weak – even though they are young men, their posture has been affected by going to war. Owen then continues;
“… we cursed through sludge.”
Gives an image of soldiers trudging through mud, getting bogged down with blood and mud and slush all mixed together encrusted on their boots. Owen writes;
“men marched asleep”
Suggesting the soldiers were so tired that they had no energy to even walk, let alone stay awake. Perhaps the soldiers were trying to conserve their energy by resting and walking at the same time.
“Many had lost their boots, but limped on blood shod”
This is a very detailed account of the soldiers walking , those without boots wore blood instead, traipsing over dead bodies left to rot in the sludge. Owen continues;
“Drunk with fatigue”
Giving an impression that the men are so tired it affects them like drunkenness. They cannot walk, cannot see well and are oblivious to their surroundings and vulnerable to the crashing of bombs around them.
The second stanza starts with a dramatic change of pace;
“Gas! Gas! Quick boys!”
Creating a sense of panic, madness and confusion as the soldiers rush for their masks;
“but someone still was yelling out and stumbling”
Indicating that someone could not get their gas mask in time and now, inhaling the fumes, begins to stumble around gasping for breath as the gas takes affect.
Owen continues;
“As under a green sea I saw him drowning”
This is a strange comparison to the sea, like drowning and struggling for breath; drowning in fumes. This also gives an intense image of the soldiers being immersed in a green gas, not able to see the tips of their fingers on their outstretched arms, eyes transfixed on the spot where they last saw their fellow comrades. At last he stumbles in to view, only for him to appear chocking, gagging for breath, to witness him suffocating must have been unbearable.
The next stanza is only two lines long and reads;
“In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”
This tells us that Owen had a re-curing dream of the man dying from the gas. Owen is helpless to get rid of the images and he is tormented by them as he slumbers on. Owen sees the man plunging out at him, searching for help and finding none.
Owen writes;
“…behind the wagon that we flung him in,…”
Indicating their haste to dispose of the deceased and in doing so taking no care in ‘flinging’ them onto a wagon with no decency and presumably their burial will not be dignified. The ‘flinging’ implies an almost primitive method, cave like and simple. The brute force put into the action to lift the dead weight gives a vivid image of the gruesome task at hand. Owen continues;
“white eyes writhing in his face,”
Suggesting the victim was mad, his movements uncontrollable. The writhing gives a sense of panic, pain and suffering. Owen says that they threw the body on the wagon but if his eyes were still moving he could not be dead but he obviously has no hope of surviving; this death has effectively been sentenced before it has even happened.
“If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gurgling from the froth, corrupted lungs,”
Shows an intense image of the soldier amongst other dead bodies jolting and twitching, coughing up blood, choking on air but not taking a breath.
Owen uses direct address in the last section;
“If you…”
This pulls the reader into the poem, to show them what it was really like, to say, if you had the chance would you have signed up and been a fool.
Owen refers to Jessie Pope when he writes;
“My friend, you would not tell with such high jest”
Implying that if Jessie Pope knew what war was really like, she wouldn’t have such an airy story, it would be one of despair, desperation and agony.
He continues;
“to children ardent for some desperate glory”
Conveying that Pope only tells her happy stories to desperate children who want to know of the glories of war, when really there are none.
Finally Owen finishes with;
“The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.”
This sums up the whole poem by indicating that the title, ‘It is sweet and fitting to die for your Country’; is in fact a lie.
Aligned with powerful imagery and heavy irony Owen was eventually killed in the very war he opposed.
Owen proves that it is a lie perpetuated across the world. It is by no means sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.
Siegfried Sassoon was a gallant war officer who won the military cross for his courage and bravery. In 1917 Sassoon began his protest against the war. He published statements against the war in well known papers, particularly the Times. He also wrote many poems about the disgraceful conditions and appalling situations the soldiers of the war were forced to endure. In these satirical poems he willfully defied the military authority, ridiculing and mocking them.
The use of irony and ridicule is used in all three of Sassoon’s poems; ‘Suicide in the Trenches’, ‘Base Details’, and ‘Does it Matter?’.
Sassoon speaks ironically in ‘Suicide in the Trenches’ through a soldier committing suicide to avoid an evermore excruciating and painful death.
“he put a bullet through his brain . No one spoke of him again.”
The reason the soldier was forgotten is because suicide was thought to be cowardly, so he was branded as a no-body. He was thought of as scum; forgotten and not remembered. It is ironic because death is supposed to be a significant event but in this case he was lost.
The title ‘Does it Matter?’ is ironic in itself, questioning the reader to view Sassoon’s point of view and realize the hatred and turmoil which is taking place. ‘Does it Matter’ is asking a rhetorical question because it obviously does matter loosing your legs, becoming blind or suffering mentally – in this case – from shell shock.
In this Sassoon accuses the people at home who are able bodied and didn’t go to war. Sassoon is implying these people have no imagination or understanding of what the soldiers went through. He sets up the poem to show us how cheeky it is to ask the question ‘Does it Matter?’ or to treat soldiers as if it doesn’t.
“you can drink and forget and be glad.”
Implies that if you have shell shock and go down to your local pub and drink, you can walk out and everything will be back to normal.
The ‘voice’ of the poem is intended to be the people at home, who are ignorant and have no imagination of the soldier’s horrific circumstances.
The ‘voice’ at this point sounds like a doctor or nurse who is extremely ignorant; it is allmost like he or she has no other option but to suggest an outrageous cure for a mentally affected patient, giving them cold comfort, even though they can do nothing to aid their recovery.
In ‘Base Details’ Sassoon speaks ironically in order to ridicule the majors:
“If I were fierce, and bald and short of breath…”
Casting a bad light on the majors, he is effectively saying if he were bald, he’d be a major; stereo-typing them to his advantage and ridiculing them. If the ‘voice’ of the poem, which isn’t necessarily Sassoon, was in their position he would behave like them and act as if war were like a ‘scrap’ even though the ‘voice’ is not a major. If he was a major he would act like them but without knowing it, unwillingly. In this poem the ‘voice’ is ridiculing the majors and implying that he is one of them, so effectively he is ridiculing himself.
The ironic death of the major is when he dies in bed:
“I’d toddle safely home and die - in bed.”
This is ironic because the majors have the cheek to march the men around and kill them off as if they were expendable, to just be thrown away. The reality is that the ‘expendable men’ are fighting for the majors’ lives and expensive lifestyle. Then to top it all, the majors waddle off home; bellies full, to die, safe, comfortable, and plump.
However the men are being shot down and left to rot where they lie, no fancy funeral and no expensive wake.
In ‘Suicide in the Trenches’ Sassoon ridicules the
“smug faced crowds”
Implying they are smug, happy and content, when really they should worry for the soldiers lives. Then Sassoon continues to say that they:
“Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.”
Suggesting that the public, the crowds, go home and pray that they won’t go to war, they wont make the effort. This is similar to the majors in ‘Base Details’, they are willing to stand by and watch the men go off to their deaths but they won’t fight themselves.
Sassoon shares his anger with the reader and you can tell he is very passionate about the subject. There is direct address to the reader suggesting that they are one of the ‘smug faced crowd’ accusing them of standing back and letting the poor young lads die to save them.
Sassoon ridicules the ignorant people at home who think it is fine to loose your legs or your vision:
“There is such splendid work for the blind”
Implying that the voice is stupid because there is obviously not much work for the blind and it certainly is not ‘splendid’.
The ‘voice’ is very patronizing and ignorant. Sassoon portrays this in a very sarcastic fashion to make the voice sound in-decent and ridiculous. They obviously have no idea about what it is like to go blind as they are able bodied and cannot understand the trauma and suffering the soldiers endured.
Sassoon is a master of irony and ridicule and uses it to diminish the reader and make them feel guilty.
The purpose of this Essay is to explain why war poetry changed during 1914 to 1918. The mood of the poems at the start of the war were jolly and upbeat. They focused strongly on persuading young men to join up. They were unaware of the reality of war so tried to convince their audience that the war was for God and men were specifically chosen to do a job.
Later, the tone of the poems changed dramatically. Poets displayed their bitter anger in a mocking and ironic fashion, ridiculing the majors and the ignorant civilian.
They described the brutal reality of war as the soldier poets told the public the truth.
