Trace the history of "The Old Lie" with particular reference to the poetry of Wilfred Owen

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coursework - war poetry.

Year ten coursework essay – War poetry

Trace the history of “The Old Lie” with particular reference to the poetry of Wilfred Owen.

Since the time of the First World War where millions were killed on the battlefield, there has not seemed to have been any beneficial results in its taking place that would have been worth the sacrifice given by all of these innocent men involved in the war.

Wilfred Owen was a poet who was killed at the age of only 25 in Sambre Canal. Owen did not believe in the fact that it was supposedly gracious to die for your country in battle and therefore promoting and triumphing the glory of war. He called this “The Old Lie”.

“The Old Lie”. Was an attitude communicated up until and during the First World War.

A variety of Owen’s poems such as “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Dulce et Decorum est” portrayed war to be horrific, inhumane and showed that the orders given were poorly organised.

The attitudes people felt towards the war began surprisingly, fairly positive, compared to how people see it these days. Now it is regarded as being horrific and upsetting.

When Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote “The Charge of the Light Brigade” he made sure that the way his poem was formed would result in reflecting the greater and more courageous side of war. As the attitudes to war began to turn around, so did the popularity of Owen’s honest poetry. Owen believed that the glory and honour that had attached to war throughout history was not right. He did not find this war as triumphant as others seemed to believe.

You can see that when you look at some of the many different war posters from that time, they are advertising war as being partly jubilant due to the honour war seemed to be bringing some people. Many were enthusiastic about the general concept of war and could not bring themselves to see that war was not valorous and the men who died in the war were not treated with the respect that they deserved. After sacrificing their lives for their country they did not even get their own proper funeral to show that people were thankful for what they have done to help their country and its people. This once again brings up the whole concept of “The Old Lie”.

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” is a poem written by Lord Alfred Tennyson, detailing the defeat of the British cavalry by the Russian machine guns.

Tennyson wrote this poem after reading a report in “The Times”, by WH Russell. Tennyson wrote the poem to honour the dead soldiers and to get the public to realise that they were dying in aid of their country.  The poem mainly glorifies the features in the battle in chronological order. Including how Lord Cardigan made the order to fight and how the soldiers blindly obeyed because it was their duty to fight for their country and its people.

Tennyson, as Poet Laureate, promoted the pro-war attitude through his poems including “The Revenge” and “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.

The attitudes towards war gradually hanged by the time the rest of Europe had entered the First World War. Tennyson represented the Victorian style Poet Laureate, and based his well-known poem on the disastrous Crimean war where the Russians drove an attack on Britain at Balaclava.

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He would represent this war in his poem to let people know of the glory and honour of this battle.

This poem is also reflected in the time of “The Old Lie”. This structure and way the poem is written affects the way that it represents the battle. There is a quick rhyme pace to represent the quick pace of the battle. The positive verbs emphasise the fact that the battle is not wrong but enforced and intense.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

“Charge for the guns!”

Repetition used underlines the odds that the soldiers are facing. In one ...

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