The poem is a sonnet, which means it has fourteen lines with each line being made up of ten syllables. In stanza one, he has put the last word on each line to rhyme with the alternate lines.
“If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed.”
In stanza 2, he has made the last word of each line to rhyme with the last word of every third line.
“And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;”
The sonnet in this poem encourages the reader the read more because there is a rhythm, which gives it more emphasis. Sonnets are usually in love poems, I feel he has written this poem to England in this poem he makes out that England is his mother.
“A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,”
This is saying that England shape, bore, awarded to be his mother. (More info)
“Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,”
This makes me feel England is his lover, he has personified as “her”, “gave once flowers to love, her ways to roam this is describing his lover”, that is England.(more info)
From reading this poem, it creates a positive imagery of England and death. It makes me think that going to fight for your country is good but if you die, you have left some of your goodness there, and you have died with the pride of your country inside of you.
“That there’s some corner of a foreign field
that is forever England. There shall be
in that rich earth a richer dust concealed;”
This is a perfect example of how he says if he dies, there will be a part of England there.
“And think, this heart, all evil shed away.”
By his death, he feels he will be delivered from evil and go to heaven. (Why?)
Rupert Brooke is expecting to die, but in the poem he attempts to hide about the horror of death.
“If I should die, think only this of me:”
he has cover up the horrors of death by what he is dying for, not why he is dying.
“In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.” (Already done this quote!)
This is idolising England and how he feels England is his heaven and he has to protect it, he makes the reader imagine this is heaven this is the best place in the World.
Rupert Brooke is very patriotic in this poem, from reading the poem if have seen he has written England or English 6 times. (Why do I feel he is?)
Dulce et Decorum est
Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen is saying what his life was like in the war, how they had to fight so much for their life. The poem is narrative, which is a detailed poem that appears to tell a story about an event. It makes the reader imagine that you are actually at the event. An example of this in the poem is:
“GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!”
His words are directed to yourself, it makes you feel there is an emergency, you feel the panic of the soldiers. Using capital letters and exclamation marks helps to make the situation seem more urgent it makes use know he is shouting.
This poem gives a negative image of what the war was like; the words he has used in his poem makes it negative. For example he describes the young soldiers as:
“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge”
These lines shows how negative it is by the words he uses:
“Cursed through sludge”
This line means…..this makes you imagine that they are trudging back from battle with hardly any health. He uses many techniques in this poem to describe how exhausted the soldiers must have felt, by using metaphors such as:
“Men marched asleep” and “Drunk with fatigue”
These metaphors have the effect of how tired and ill they are.
The tone does change through the poem. In the first verse they are limping back to the trenches, while then in the second verse it uses direct speech to change the tone and it makes the tempo appear faster, as they all rush to put on their gas masks and watch a soldier die in front of them. I reckon he changes the tempo of the stanzas so you get more drawn into the poem, he does this so he can tell you how bad it is in the war.
“GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!”
This is the beginning of stanza 2, it changes the tempo but using capital letters for most of the words and using explanation marks.
From the descriptions he uses in the poem, it gives an effective picture and you can imagine you are there he does this by using direct address
“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest”
This is an example of direct address he uses in the poem, using direct address helps u gain a better image of the poem.
The author has given his poem a Latin title: Dulce et Decorum. This means “sweet and noble”. I feel this does not seem true because the image he has given is the opposite of the meaning “Dulce et decorum”: sweet and noble. At the end of the poem, he has written:
“Ducle et decorum pro patria mori.”
This means, “it is sweet and noble to die for one’s country”. Wilfred Owen says at the end of his poem it is “The old Lie”. I feel he wrote this because at the start of the war he may have believed it was patriotic and noble to fight for your country, but having experienced fighting on the front line himself he realises you may not feel sweet and noble. In fact, war is rough and
I feel Wilfred Owen wrote this poem to say how he feels about the war, all the pain exhaustion n tiredness they went though to protect there country. Everything the soldier done used up every piece of their energy, it was like torture for the soldiers and they could not stop the pain. He describes how the soldiers were like so graphically so we can understand how bad it was like fighting in the war; from this poem, it could have changed many people’s views on the war.
Conclusion
I feel these two poems give completely opposite views of what the war was like. Rupert Brooke is writing about of how proud you should be to be fighting for your country but Wilfred Owen is writing of all the pain the soldiers went through during the war. There are many differences in the poem. In “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke he has written about one soldier and how he feels, but in “Dulce et Decorum”, Wilfred Owen he has written about a soldiers experience in the war with others, and how he saw his fellow soldiers die in front of him. In Dulce et Decorum est he uses emotive language and many adjectives to describe the image but in The Soldier he uses senses to create the picture.
“Incurable sores on innocent tongues.”
This is an example of emotive language in Dulce et Decorum est.
I feel that Dulce et decorum is the most effective out of both poems because Wilfred Owen had experience fighting in the war, so he knows what happens, but Rupert Brooke was a widely regarded poet so he made his readers feel that there was no danger, and that the soldiers should be so proud to be fighting for their country. I also feel the Wilfred Owen created a better image in his poem by using many more techniques. Using more techniques helps you create a better picture so it helps the poem appear more effective to the reader.
