How are differing attitudes to war expressed in the poetry of WWI that you have read? You should compare 'England to her sons' with 'Dulce et Decorum Est'.

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Claire Fooks 9Y

How are differing attitudes to war expressed in the poetry of WWI that you have read? You should compare ‘England to her sons’ with ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. You may refer to other poems. Remember to consider the influence of historical contents on the poet’s viewpoints.

        

In this poem I am going to compare two poems from World

War I. The to poems that I will be comparing are ‘England to her sons’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. ‘England to her sons’ was written by W.N. Hodgson in 1914, ‘Dulce et decorum est’ was written by Wilfred Owen in 1918. These two poems that I am going to study have very different ideas towards the war.

        In the poem ‘England to her sons’ the attitude towards the war is very pro-war, however ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is very anti-war.  ‘England to her sons’ is pro-war because it was written at the beginning of war in 1914 and was trying to get men to enlist for the army. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is anti-war because it was written during the war in 1918 and so the poet will have experienced the war and is trying to tell the public what war is really like. ‘England to her sons’ uses a lot of propaganda, for example, ‘Free in service’, when you are at war you are not free in service, you do what you are told and this is the same with any service, also this poem is telling us how to feel about war. In ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ no propaganda is used because the poet is trying to portray the real image of war.

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        Each poem has very different themes in ‘England to her sons’ one of the themes is propaganda but in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ there is a theme of the lies of propaganda, ‘The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.’ (Meaning ‘It is sweet and meet to die for your country’) and it is saying that this is all a lie. In ‘England to her sons’ another theme is men to enlist, ‘I hear you thrilling to the trumpet call of war’, people are not thrilled at the news of war and trumpets do not call. The ...

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