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Recommended: Analysis on war poems
“Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words”. Here American poet Paul Engle manages to unveil the crux of poems underneath the stanzas, lines and technicalities- the emotions. The strength of the poem depends on the weaknesses portrayed by the poets’ personas because ultimately the easiest way to control one is to tug a little at their heartstrings. No one has conquered hearts with a gaudy show of strength. Hence, emotive language is a weapon of great effect if wielded correctly, which the poets of the six poems mentioned execute successfully. Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘War Photographer’ illustrates the emotional suffering of a troubled war photographer as he’s alone ‘in his darkroom’ (a place of peace and tranquillity) reflecting upon the agony he has witnessed. The religious metaphor in the first stanza is especially effective because it compares the photographer to ‘a priest preparing to intone a Mass’. Relating to how he has to impart knowledge about the warzone victims similar to how a priest offers moral instructions or perhaps even prepares for a funeral mass to remember the deceased. From a different perception, the use of this religious imagery could be interpreted as the photographer’s confession and a plea for forgiveness for having taken such horrific pictures. Duffy has used this silent, emotional unravelling of the photographer to invoke the reader’s sense of pathos; we empathize with the photographer’s sacrifice of his morals for a greater cause. No matter the context, when children are introduced in conjunction with pain and terror, the emotive value is taken to the next level. Duffy cleverly takes advantage of this, when she mentions the ‘fields ... ... middle of paper ... ...clusion, the readers will be able to relate to the feeling of loss as well as paternal/maternal instinct to protect your offspring, which is eternal through humanity and nature. All these war poems have great emotional power represented by the poets as well as instilled in the reader. The poets effectively use these emotional triggers to open a flood of emotions which they then can use to manipulate the reader’s reaction to certain situations. Novelist Salman Rushdie sums up the purpose of poems with a quote, “a poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it going to sleep”. And this was ultimately what these poems have done; they manage to make the world aware of the atrocities of war through times, in addition to pushing us to keep our actions in check and refrain from such inhumane acts.
There are many things in this world that are impossible to understand without first hand experience.This can be especially irritating for people who have the knowledge, but see everyone else with the wrong idea. Philip Larkin and Wilfred Owen show this in their poems about the common misconception of war glorification. Through imagery and the use of similes, they explain what it's really like for a person to go into battle. To outsiders, fighting in war is a noble cause worthy of envy and praise, but from the inside perspective the only thing war does is take away the innocence of
Route March Rest by Vernon Scannell, Night Raid by Desmond Hawkins, The Battle by Louis Simpson - How do the poets communicate emotional or moving responses to war? What do these poems tell us about wartime life and the thoughts and feelings of civilians and soldiers? How do the poets communicate emotional or moving responses to war? The following essay will try to answer the question above.
Portrayal of War in the Pre 1900 Poetry Before 1900, war was always seen as a glorious thing. People truly believed in the words of the ancient writer Horace, "Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori. " This phrase can be translated, as "It is a lovely and honourable thing; to die for one's country". Pre 1900 war poetry was strongly patriotic and glossed over the grim reality of death, preferring instead to display the heroic aspects of fighting. If death was mentioned, it was only in a noble and glorious context.
are not free in service, you do what you are told and this is the same
In conclusion, depending on the position from which one views war, the standpoint may vary ranging from being supportive of the soldiers because those who die are dying for the country or they are completely unsupportive of war activities because it is a brutal and gruesome experience involving countless unnecessary injuries and deaths. Affected by a number of factors, the authors of the two poems have chosen opposing standpoints on the issue of war where Tennyson glorified it with the main message that it is an honour to die for one's country whereas the other, Owen suppresses the idea of war by illustrating all the horrid experiences of a soldier.
War Photographer by Carol Anne Duffy, presents the photographer’s experiences of a world being torn apart by war. Duffy uses a number of literary devices to describe the horror and agony of war; the phrase “spools of suffering” is a metaphor, along with containing alliteration, as it isn’t the spools of film which are suffering but the people pictured in the photographs. Duffy cleverly presents a paradox where by the chaos of pain and suffering, is elegantly organised into “ordered rows”. The phrase “ordered rows” could also be classed as a metaphor, comparing the rolls to the coffins of the dead soldiers who lay in orderly fashion in memorials. Duffy also uses the colours to convey that the red light might symbolise bloodshed and that the pictures are “black and white” which may present contrasts between good and evil. At first the photographer feels disgust towards the uncaring world and guilt a being the one exploiting the pain to the rest of the world via newspapers. But later, he adopts an impassive attitude, realising that no matter how he feels, he cannot change the world, nor stop the war or bloodshed from happening; all he can do is his job. His photographs can show what the photographer saw but not what he felt as there is no way for his photographs to show his memories. The War Photographer, is a chilling and disturbing view of experience, where conflicting feelings ...
if it is going to glorify the war and all the people who fought for
Through reading this poem several times I decided that the message from the poem is that war is full of horror and there is little or no glory. Methods which I found most effective were Full rhyme and metaphor.
Although the aftermath of World War I was devastating to many, it did bring the literature world some of the most important work of the modernist era. Many of the writers were directly or indirectly affected by the war and their writing certainly showed this. Each writer’s work shows a view of the war from a different perspective. However, what they most have in common is they way they paint the war in a negative light. T.S. Elliot writes his poem The Wasteland to show the after affects of the war on everyone while Sassoon write They to show the after affects on the soldier. In the essay, these writers and their poems will be discussed to show how they similarly reacted to the event of World War I in reference to the themes of their poems and how differently they use those themes.
The next line expresses the way in which he has no grave stone, just a
‘Poetry can challenge the reader to think about the world in new ways.’ It provokes the readers to consider events, issues and people with revised understanding and perspectives. The poems Dulce Et Decorum Est (Wilfred Owen, 1917) and Suicide in the Trenches (Siegfried Sassoon, 1917), were composed during World War One and represented the poets’ point of views in regards to the glorification of war and encouraged readers to challenge their perspectives and reflect upon the real consequences behind the fabrications of the glory and pride of fighting for one’s nation.
Although war is often seen as a waste of many lives, poets frequently focus on its effect on individuals. Choose two poems of this kind and show how the poets used individual situations to illustrate the impact of war.
‘’War Photographer’’ is a thought-provoking and mind gripping poem by Carol Ann Duffy. The poem revolves around the life of the photographer as he juggles between his two personas as he try to develop his photos and reminisce about the war torn countries, all the innocent people and the horrific and gory things he has witnessed. As the poem progresses and the pictures begin to develop the memories of pain and suffering from his past starts to unravel and becomes clearer and clearer. The main message the writer is trying to convey is the fact that through modern times news about the war is being published by the media in a truthful way that people feel less sympathy towards the innocent lives of the people dying all around the world. The writer effectively raises questions about our feelings and emotions that we feel towards war and death.
In “War Photographer”, Duffy illustrates the wrongful killings and heart wrenching deaths that the war photographer had to witness. The photographer took pictures of constant death from his surroundings and Duffy shows how he managed to deal with that and she highlights his sadness and grief from his experience. A line from the poem that says, “how the blood stained into foreign dust” is clear evidence that there was death taking place on the battleground. Duffy uses the words “foreign dust” to describe that there was a conflict in another country, which meant th...
War consumes the youth of young men and completely alters a person. From numerous poems, it is made clear that war exhausts the youth of young men, and has left their lives with no meaning. These poems are “Dulce Et Decorum Est” and “Mental Cases” written by Wilfred Owen. Similarly, they both employ the same techniques, such as similes and metaphors. However, a somewhat different perspective is projected through the poem “In Flanders Field” by John McCrae, which dissimilitudes yet intensifies the main message. Whether from a more emotional perspective or from a physical view, war has devastated the prime time of many young men in multitudinous ways.