Compare Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen, and Before Agincourt by William Shakespeare.

Before Agincour and Dulce et decorum est

I have chosen to compare two poems for this piece of work, and they are Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen, and Before Agincourt by William Shakespeare. Both look at War as the main subject, but express very different views on it. Wilfred Owen has written a very powerful poem about a man dying from a gas attack during the First World War, whereas Shakespeare writes a rhetoric poem about the honour and pride found in battle.

¡¥Dulce et decorum est¡¦, and ¡¥Before Agincourt¡¦ are two poems so incredibly far away, in meaning, from each other, that it is very difficult to compare them. The one big difference is their attitude towards war. Wilfred Owen has actually been in a war. He saw what he wrote about. He was there, as the writing is his thoughts and feelings. Shakespeare wasn¡¦t in the war he wrote about. He wrote about it after it happened, either as a way to boost morale in England at the time of the Spanish Armada for Queen Elizabeth, or because they were his own views on War. This battle did actually happen, but Henry didn¡¦t say these words, Shakespeare just put them in his mouth. Owen¡¦s poem is concrete. It happened and was real. He knows what he¡¦s talking about because he was there and went through it all.

Shakespeare¡¦s poem is airy. It¡¦s abstract and doesn¡¦t appear to mean anything. At a first glance its just men talking, but when you read it properly you see that it is far more than that. Henry believes so much in what he¡¦s saying that he¡¦s prepared to die for it. It¡¦s a very spiritual poem, in that it is not earthed, or material. All Henry wants is honour; he feels that that is the only thing worth anything on this earth.
¡¥By jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:¡¦
He thinks that honour and pride are worth dying for, and worth killing for. He feels that the fewer the men who fight for England, then the bigger the victory will be. He wants no cowards fighting for England, either.
¡¥Let he that hath no stomach for this fight,
Let him depart, his passport shall be made.¡¦
Henry is so adamant that honour is the best thing you could have, that he even believes it will make him immortal
¡¥From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it alone shall be remembered;¡¦

Wilfred Owen is not totally against war, but, as it says at the end of the poem, the old lie:
¡¥Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori¡¦ or
It is sweet and fitting
To die for your country
He is very angry about this lie that is being told to young children and the citizens of England that are back at home, not fighting. Wilfred Owen also believes in honour, and doing what you believe in. He believes in telling all of England what it is really like on the front line.

Shakespeare¡¦s poem is about following what you believe, even if it kills you, ...

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Shakespeare¡¦s poem is about following what you believe, even if it kills you, that it is better to die fighting than to live knowing what you could have done. This feeling isn¡¦t as relevant now, in the twenty-first century, because almost everyone can see two sides to arguaments. This is a post-modernist time, where nothing is for certain. We don¡¦t have that feeling of being all-powerful, that we can win everything, and that no one is a s good as us. We can always see two sides to stories, and if we were being invaded now, most people would think about where the opposition was coming from, and why they were invading us. Because of these feelings in changes and attitudes, I don¡¦t think anyone now will be able to understand the full power of ¡¥Before Agincourt¡¦, as Shakespeare meant it. However, with such concerns as post-traumatic stress syndrome and awareness of pain, everyone can understand what Wilfred Owen meant only too well.

The title of Wilfred Owen¡¦s poem, which is ¡¥Dulce et decorum est¡¦, means It is sweet and fitting. This is baffling at first, because unless you read the whole poem, you won¡¦t understand. What the poem actually goes on to say is ¡¥Pro patria mori¡¦ or to die for your country.

¡¥Before Agincourt¡¦ is saying that the poem (or speech) is actually happening before the battle of Agincourt.

The mood of Wilfred Owen¡¦s poem does change over the course of the writing. At first he is just writing about what is going on, describing what is happening, what he¡¦s seeing and feeling. However after the gas bomb is dropped, this turns to despair. He repeats things, as if he still cannot quite believe what¡¦s happening, he wants you to be able to. By the end, he is desperately angry, he still cannot believe what¡¦s happening, but this time it is that people are being lied to so much.

Shakespeare¡¦s poem is passionate, about the honour that Henry thinks is the most important thing in the world, that there is nothing he won¡¦t do to get it. The mood doesn¡¦t change over the course of the poem, he says the same thing, however sometimes he does seem to get angry at the men he¡¦s with, saying that they can leave if they want to, because the less men there are then the higher the amount of honour there will be for the rest of the men.

Owen¡¦s poem is written using a lot of images. He writes in such a way that you can see exactly what he¡¦s describing. You can really empathise with what he¡¦s writing. There is a regular rhyme scheme in Owen¡¦s poem, which is that every other end word rhymes. Shakespeare¡¦s poem is written in blank verse. Owen¡¦s poem is also written using stanzas, whereas Shakespeare¡¦s is just a block of writing. Owen¡¦s poem is a narrative poem and refers to the reader more than once, pulling you into the poem, making it seem all the more real and personal to you.
¡¥If you could hear¡¦
¡¥If in some smothering dreams you too could pace¡¦ and
¡¥My friend¡¦

The structure of Owen¡¦s poem reinforces the massage by making it run smoothly. So that when a short section comes in the middle it reflects the shock Owen feels when the gas hits one of his friends. This is also the only palace in the poem where a descriptive word is repeated, as though Owen can¡¦t quite believe what is happening.

Shakespeare¡¦s intention is to boost morale. He wants to get the reader to want to fight, to join the battle and get the glory. During the time it was written, this poem probably did that job. Even now, I do feel uplifted by the poem, but because of the difference in time, and how much England has changed since it was written, I expect the poem meant more to people of that era than it does to people today.

Owen¡¦s intention is to get people to think about the lie that was told to many people about the First World War; about what was said happened in the trenches and what actually did. Owen trys to get his anger and frustration about what happened across to people and I think that even today, it does work. The poem has an affect on me that must have been even worse fifty years ago. It makes me feel very sad that this sort of thing did happen, that people died in such a way as this, and angry that the soldiers didn¡¦t know what they were going towards, that the families didn¡¦t know how their men died.

Neither poem uses much alliteration, but Wilfred Owen does use some when he says
¡¥And watched the white eyes writhing in his face¡¦

Shakespeare didn¡¦t use any metaphors, but Owen did, when he wrote
¡¥Men marched asleep¡¦ and
¡¥Drunk with fatigue¡¦

Owen used enjambment when he wrote
¡¥If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in¡¦

Shakespeare didn¡¦t use any onomatopoeia, but Owen did, by using words such as ¡¥guttering¡¦, ¡¥hoots¡¦ and ¡¥gargling¡¦.

Shakespeare used no similes either, but Owen did, writing
¡¥Bent double, like old beggars under sacks.¡¦

In conclusion, I enjoyed Owen¡¦s poem much more than I did Shakespeare¡¦s. I felt that ¡¥Before Agincourt¡¦ was boring. I didn¡¦t like the lack of tension, action and drama. I thought that it just went on and on around the same idea, that the language was flowery and too old fashioned for me. Although both poems were repetitive, when ¡¥Dulce et decorum est¡¦ repeated words, it really hammered the message home, but when ¡¥Before Agincourt¡¦ repeated the same idea, it just bored me. I felt that Owen¡¦s poem less boring because it was fast paced. It really happened and the images it described were vivid and in your face. So, I would definitely recommend Owen¡¦s poem to anyone, and I did really enjoy writing about it.