Comparing Spring Offensive and Into Battle
These are two poems written during the First World War by two serving
soldiers. They use their own experience of war, their personal and
family backgrounds and their previously held beliefs in writing these
powerful poems, both of which were published during the conflict.
The first poem 'Spring Offensive' was written in 1917 by Wilfred Owen
and the second 'Into Battle' by Julian Grenfell was completed in 1915.
These poems used the contrast between the new life of spring, with the
promise of warmer days to follow and the destruction and brutality of
death on the battlefield.
In Owens' poem he uses spring as a short introduction to the scene and
leads quite suddenly into the horror of death on the front line. He
leads the reader into a calm situation where tired soldiers rest
before they move forward. The soldiers do not have a care in the world
e.g. 'watched the long grass swirl' and 'hour after hour they pondered
the warm field' These first verses are a powerful statement by Owen
describing nature and all the lovely things it provides e.g. 'warm
fields and buttercups'. He then switches the mood dramatically as
'suddenly the whole sky burned with fury against them' to bring the
reader quickly into the fury of the battlefield.
Grenfell also used the idea of spring but continued with the theme all
the way through the poem to the end. He does this because he thinks of
war as glorious where everybody has a good time ' It is like a big
picnic - it's all the best fun one ever dreamed of' (taken from a
letter he wrote to home). Grenfell used the soldiers to express the
energy and strength of nature, reflecting the power and growth of
spring around, as they approa...
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...an feelings, which creates a good picture in your mind.
I think that 'into battle' is a more attractive poem because it
bypasses all the bad things about war. It tries to make you
concentrate on the good side. Grenfell uses a lot of nature to try and
keep his poem attractive and interesting. When the soldiers die he
says that it is not a bad thing because nature will still look after
you. Grenfell saw war in a totally different way to Owen.
I think that 'Spring Offensive' is more convincing because it tells
you the real facts and thoughts about war. It still uses the
attractive side of nature at the beginning, but soon gets onto the
more serious side about the battle. It says what the soldiers are
thinking about. They are thinking about death and hell and what it is
like. The images that Owen creates are very clear, which helps me to
imagine the poem.
In the end of the narrator’s consciousness, the tone of the poem shifted from a hopeless bleak
From the very first word of the poem, there is a command coming from an unnamed speaker. This establishes a sense of authority and gives the speaker a dominant position where they are dictating the poem to the reader rather than a collaborative interacti...
Also it is comparing the war to a game, which is a euphemism as well as a metaphor. It is a euphemism because war is a very serious, dangerous matter; whereas a game is something that people enjoy and never get seriously injured in. By using this euphemism, Jessie Pope - the poet – lessens the severity of war, and makes her readers’ think of it as enjoyable, and something that they want to do.
through the pile of ashes that once used to be his poems. This part of the poem symbolizes
with his daughter’s disability. The poem starts off with her father walking in from gathering wood then
What is war really like all together? What makes war so horrifying? The horror of war is throughout All Quiet on the Western Front. For example Albert says the war has ruined them as young people and Paul agrees. “Albert expresses it: "The war has ruined us for everything." He is right. We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.” (Remarque, Chapter 5). The way the war has affected each soldier has changed them forever. The boys who were once school boys will never be the same.
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, written by the talented author Chris Hedges, gives us provoking thoughts that are somewhat painful to read but at the same time are quite personal confessions. Chris Hedges, a talented journalist to say the least, brings nearly 15 years of being a foreign correspondent to this book and subjectively concludes how all of his world experiences tie together. Throughout his book, he unifies themes present in all wars he experienced first hand. The most important themes I was able to draw from this book were, war skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a constant battle between death and love.
The simple definition of war is a state of armed competition, conflict, or hostility between different nations or groups; however war differs drastically in the eyes of naive children or experienced soldiers. Whether one is a young boy or a soldier, war is never as easy to understand as the definition. comprehend. There will inevitably be an event or circumstance where one is befuddled by the horror of war. For a young boy, it may occur when war first breaks out in his country, such as in “Song of Becoming.” Yet, in “Dulce et Decorum Est” it took a man dying in front of a soldier's face for the soldier to realize how awful war truly is. Both “Song of Becoming” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” are poems about people experiencing the monstrosity of war for the first time. One is told from the perspective of young boys who were stripped of their joyful innocence and forced to experience war first hand. The other is from the perspective of a soldier, reflecting on the death of one of his fellow soldiers and realizing that there is nothing he can do to save him. While “Song of Becoming” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” both focus on the theme of the loss of innocence, “Song of Becoming” illustrates how war affects the lives of young boys, whereas “Dulce et Decorum Est” depicts the affect on an experienced soldier.
The word 'Heart' is used a lot in the poem. This is to show his love
War, what is it good for? Some would say absolutely nothing. This is the recurring theme in protest songs from the 1960’s through present day. This essay will show by comparing and contrasting songs from the Viet Nam era with the present day songs protesting war and the senselessness of going to war. The end result invariably is death for both sides. All of the songs, regardless of the setting and time focus on senseless death.
There’s nothing better than a good dog, no matter the breed.” Pitbulls are one of the most protective dogs, just how God made them to be. Some people need to know how much work pitbulls are to train, and all of the time with them all the time so that they behave well. Before banning the pitbull, there needs to be thought put into it first. People that will spend time with the dog and build trust with it, they are the ones that deserve the dog.
He uses powerful imagery and onomatopoeia to achieve the desired effects that make the poem more realistic. All this combined together produces effective thought provoking ideas and with each read, I gradually get an improved understanding and appreciation of the poem.
Towards the end of the poem , he starts sounding like the optimistic Hughes we all have come to know and love.
This change in tone echoes the emotions and mental state of the narrator. At the beginning of the poem, the narrator starts somewhat nervous. However, at the end, he is left insane and delusional. When he hears a knocking at the door, he logically pieces that it is most likely a visitor at the door.
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