Compare and contrast the styles and techniques of two of the Wilfred

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Compare and contrast the styles and techniques of two of the Wilfred

Owen poems you have studied to demonstrate the poet's attitude to war

Wilfred Owen was a war poet from the First World War; he was born in

1893 and died in 1918, whilst fighting in the "Great War". He wrote

his poetry while sitting as an injured soldier on a hospital bed, and

many say this is where he developed his flair for writing. In this

essay, I have decided to analyse two poems; "Dulce et Decorum est" and

"Anthem for Doomed Youth". In my opinion both of these poems portray

Owen's anger towards the war, but do so in very different ways. I am

going to compare and contrast the two poems, so that I get a better

idea of Owen's attitude to war.

Themes are important to any poem because it is what they are about.

The main theme in "Dulce et Decorum est" is that it is not a glorious

thing to fight for one's country; it is actually a horrific and

traumatising experience. This is ironic because the name of the poem

translates to "It is a glorious and honorable thing to fight for one’s

country". I think Owen has done this so that he can lead up to the

last line where he is urging people back at home to cease telling

their children the "old lie" and to me this is effective. Stanza three

is writing about the tragedy of war; it says "Obscene as cancer", and

I think this is a useful simile because it is something that people

back at home, reading the poetry, could relate to. Another theme of

this poem is death; there are many occasions in which Owen talks about

death. I have chosen "guttering, choking, drowning" as an example

because it portrays an image of a horrific and painful way of dying.

Another example of death is “white eyes writhing in his face, his

hanging face” this is effective to me because the use of repetition

emphasises the state in which the soldier is in, and draws a vivid

images in the readers mind. I think these themes show that Owen has a

bitter attitude towards war because he seems to only mention a bad

side of war as if there is no glorious part.

The main theme in stanza one of "Anthem for Doomed Youth" however is

the lack of a funeral for people dying in the war. An example of this

is "choirs of wailing shells"; this means that the only choir they

have when they die is the sound the shells make as they move through

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