“Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die”
The poem states, “Some one had blundered”. The soldiers knew that someone had made a mistake in their order so they knew they were going to be killed, but they rode in anyway. Tennyson is glorifying how obedient the soldiers are. Tennyson uses a lot of repetition in this piece to emphasise certain important verses, “Cannon to the right of them, Cannon to the left of them, Cannon behind them”. There is also a strong rhythm throughout the poem, giving the feeling of the galloping horses.
‘Vitai Lampada’ is an example of a pre twentieth century pro-war poem. The title means ‘Torch of Life’. Henry Newbolt wrote the poem in 1892. At the time that the British Empire needed many soldiers to join the army, so this poem was written to encourage public school boys into joining the army. It was a propaganda poem. It is a huge contrast to Owen’s poems. This writer had also never been to war. The writer compares war to a game, “Play up! Play up! And play the game!”
This final line in the poem is quite memorable and would probably have an impact on impressionable young men, making them think that war would be fun.
‘The Drum’ is one of the first examples of anti-war poetry. It was written by the Quaker, John Scott, in 1782. This poem also has an insistent rhythm. It is imitating the beat of the recruiting drum. It has a very strong opening, with the words, “I hate that drum’s discordant sound”. ‘Hate’ was a very strong word in the time that the poem was written. He also uses alliteration in the same line to emphasise it. Scott writes about “tawdry lace”, he is talking about the smart-looking uniform that tricks people into joining the army. He then goes on to describe all the horrors of the war in the second verse. He uses very graphic language, “mangled limbs, and dying groans”, to emphasise just how horrible it was in the war. Scott is another writer who didn’t have any experience of war, but this does not make the poem have any less impact on the reader. It is easy to remember, which helps get the message across.
Wilfred Owen wrote many anti-war poems, one of his most striking being ‘Disabled’. This poem is about a man that signed up to the army when he was drunk, “It was after football, when he’d drunk a peg”. He signed up not caring what Germany had done; he just wanted to impress his girlfriend. This is a direct contrast to ‘Vitai Lampada’ where it is saying how honourable it is to die for your country. He was not old enough to join, but he was accepted anyway, “Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years”. The poem describes how, now he is disabled, he is treated very differently, as he has no limbs as a result of the war. He isn’t seen as a hero for going to war and fighting for his country, he is seen as “some queer disease”. Women now do not look at him as they would have done before,
“To-night he noticed how the women’s eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole”.
This poem shows the truth about war and how people that go to war and are wounded are not treated as heroes, like the pro-war poems have said.
The poem “Dulce et Decorum est” was a direct contrast to the poem “Vitai Lampada”. From the first line of the poem, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,” it is clear that Owen is trying to get across the message that there is no glory in war. The poem says how the men are all “drunk with fatigue”. This gives insight into what the conditions were actually like in the war, the soldiers all had low morale and physical strength, they were too tired to do anything. Owen writes about a man who didn’t get his gas mask on in time so he dies in agony. He goes into detail, using bold words to describe it. He uses references to himself, “I saw him drowning” to make it a more personal experience. He also says that the sight of the man dying haunts him.
“In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”
Owen also describes the dead man on a wagon that they put him in. He uses very graphic language.
“And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs”
“Futility” is a poem about a soldier that has either frozen to death over night or been shot by a sniper. Owen uses very soft, sad language in this piece
“Move him into the sun-
Gently its touch awoke him once…
…If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know”
This is saying that the sun used to wake this man up and if anything would be able to wake him up now, it would be the sun. This poem has quite a morbid feel to it. Owen is saying that the sun brings life to earth, “Think how it wakes the seeds”, but it cannot bring this man back to life. Owen also asks why did the sun wake life for this “cold clay” at all if it is old to end in the futility of this war. This poem is a sonnet, a form that Owen liked to use. Traditionally sonnets were often love poems-this is expressing the opposite emotion-the pointlessness of life.
“Spring Offensive” is a poem about soldiers just before battle and then going into battle. Very effective language is used in this piece, especially where Owen is describing the men going into battle. It gives the feeling of a very calm atmosphere when the men are on top of the hill, “Halted against the shade of a last hill, They fed, and eased of back-loads, were at ease; And leaning on the nearest chest or knees Carelessly slept”, and then a very chaotic atmosphere when the men are running down into battle,
“And instantly the whole sky burned
With fury against them; the earth set sudden cups
In thousands for their blood”
The ‘cups’ for the men’s blood are actually the shell holes that the shells caused in the earth when they landed. This was Wilfred Owen’s last poem. He wrote a letter describing an attack he took part in in May 1917 and he used ideas from this letter to write the poem.
“Anthem for Doomed Youth” is another of Owen’s very effective poems. In the first line he describes how men “die as cattle”, showing that the men that die at war have no dignity in dying. The entire poem is a comparison to an elaborate Edwardian funeral. He says that they don’t get prayers or bells tolled for them on the battlefield; they just get the sound of machine gun fire. All the things of a normal funeral have been replaced and contrasted,
“The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall”
“Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds”
“No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells”
From the above poems, it is clear that Owen changed war poetry in a considerable way. No one before the First World War had ever really written any anti-war poetry from personal experience, but he was very important in changing that. He showed people that war was not at all glamorous like many pre twentieth century war poets had made it out to be. These poems had glossed over the horrors of war, and Owen brought to light the truth. He was talking from his own experience so his poems have more of an impact.