Poetry of the First World War.

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Poetry of the First World War

The First World War broke out on the 4th August 1914. It sparked fantasies for many young men of becoming a war hero. The government assured everyone that the war would be over by Christmas. Boys and men decided to join up in an attempt not to miss the excitement.

Poets were just as patriotic as the men going to die fighting. Because of this patriotism, the poets wrote about how glamorous the war was and how good it felt to die for ones country. This was all in an attempt to keep the number of men high enough to replace those who were lost. These men did see action but they were all mainly middle class people and so were given high ranks and didn’t see much of the front line. They didn’t see the true horrors of war and carried on writing patriotic poems. Fortunately for men still joining the war, some poets, such as Wilfred Owen, did see the horrors of war and wrote very unpatriotic poems such as ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ which was one of his most famous poems.

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‘The Volunteer’ by Herbert Asquith tells about how good war was and how one should die for their country; “and in that high hour he lived and died” he says that the greatest point in a man’s life is when he dies for his country. He never saw war which makes him hypocritical as he talks about an experience he never had.

In his poems, Asquith uses great images of Roman wars to glamorize war; “the gleaming eagles of the legions came”. This creates a picture in the reader’s minds of glorious times when the Roman army was the ...

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