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Discussing the history and purpose of War Poetry
Discussing the history and purpose of War Poetry
Discussing the history and purpose of War Poetry
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When war first broke out in 1914 the general attitude towards it was patriotism. Many young men grabbed the chance to fight for their country and show the women their braveness, they thought they would come back heroes, however they did not know what happened beyond the cheerful and brave faces seen in the news papers and the blissful time the soldiers had in their letters home. This made many more men go to war. Things gradually changed, death, disease, mud, it had suddenly hit that to fight for your country was not such an honour.
Soldiers firstly began to write poetry because poetry was the most important mode of expression for those who were shocked and disillusioned by the realities of the First World War.
I will be discussing five poems written by well-known war poets such as:
‘The Soldier’ by Rupert Brooke, ‘Into Battle’ by Julian Grenfell, ‘Dulce et decorum est’ by Wilfred Owen, ‘Base Details’ by Siegfried Sassoon and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ by Wilfred Owen.
Julian Grenfell had many years of editing before becoming a distinguished war poet in his local newspaper. But he had always had his heart set on being part of the military. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1914. A year later, 1915, he was wounded in the head during battle and died later in hospital of shrapnel in the skull. Grenfell had always praised war saying in letters home “ I adore war…it is like a big picnic, its all the best fun one ever dreamed of.” ‘Into Battle’ is a positive poem in which war is glorified.
Rupert Brooke’s war experience consisted of one day of limited military action with the Hood Battalion during the evacuation of Antwerp. He never fought in the war as he died on Easter Sunday 1915 aged 28 from blood p...
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...many to die but are given not burial, they just lie under rubble from buildings and their own skin serves as their pall? The “drawing down of blinds” could be the eyes that are shut in mourning, or the eyes that are shut as they die or it could even signify the blinds being drawn at night where a person kneels down to pray for those at war.
There is either a positive or a negative attitude in war, there is no poet that will write both kinds of poems during the same time, there is always change in view as the time and the battle draws on. In most poems there is a definite sadness, the horrific images described and the loneliness and feeling of detachment from the world or the patriotism and honour to fight for one’s country. There are so many attitudes to war because people feel there are certain reasons for it, it also depends on what part you play in the war.
Many soldiers who come back from the war need to express how they feel. Many do it in the way of writing. Many soldiers die in war, but the ones who come back are just as “dead.” Many cadets come back with shell shock, amputated arms and legs, and sometimes even their friends aren’t there with them. So during World War I, there was a burst of new art and writings come from the soldiers. Many express in the way of books, poems, short stories and art itself. Most soldiers are just trying to escape. A lot of these soldiers are trying to show what war is really like, and people respond. They finally might think war might not be the answer. This is why writers use imagery, irony and structure to protest war.
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
The ghastly experiences on the front deeply traumatized young soldiers, many of whom already had some poetic endeavours, and as a result they began writing trench poetry. The best trench poets, like Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, and Siegfried Sassoon produced their best works only when they abandoned the conventional “Georgian” style of Rupert Brooke and instead wrote realistically about the war and the situation on the front (Clausson). Wilfred Owen, perhaps the most famous trench poet, criticizes the romantic ideal of sacrifice in his “gas poem” (Bloom) “Dulce et Decorum Est”, thus trying to destroy “the glamorized decency of war” (Bloom 15). In the first stanza young men are depicted as “old beggars” (Owen), who are in a trance-like state, lame, blind, drunk, and deaf, too tired to be afraid of the sound of rifle fire, of “outstripped Five-Nines” (Owen) behind them. They march towards some place where they could rest. Then, the gas attack shakes them up: “Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!” (Owen). Unfortunately, one man was did not manage to put h...
Autobiographies, diaries, letters, official records, photographs and poems are examples of primary sources from World War One. The two primary sources analyzed in this essay are the poems, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen and “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae. Primary sources are often personal, written from the limited perspective of a single individual. It is very difficult for the author to capture their own personal experience, while incorporating the involvement and effects of other events happening at the same time. Each piece of writing studied describes the author’s perception of the war. Both of the poems intend to show to grave reality of war, which often was not realized until the soldiers reach the frontlines. The poems were both written at battle within two years of each other. However, the stark difference between the two poems is astonishing. “Anthem for Doomed Youth” gives a much different impression than “In Flanders Field” despite the fact that both authors were in the same war and similar circumstances. The first two lines in “In Flanders Fields” “…the poppies blow, Between the crosses, row on row.” are an image o...
The famous works written in 1917 by poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon cast aside the conventional inspiration for content, patriotism, and delve into the horrific journey that is war. Two poems in particular, Sassoon’s “Suicide in the Trenches” and Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, speak boldly against life in the trenches in efforts of evading the lies and illusions of a clean and righteous war. In doing so, readers are presented with tales that conjure up powerful and far-from-picturesque images that harbor the ability to shake the very core of a human through impactful language as crafted by these poets. While both poems allow the reader to come to the same conclusion that war is not clean, their approaches differ and therefore create a difference in weight of impact. Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est” is more impactful in that the gruesome imagery is more explicitly defined through dark, evoking diction, and the message of the poem is satirically approached through the strategic title to target a specific audience, while Siegfried Sassoon’s “Suicide in the Trenches” offers a similar message, but is presented in a fashion that relies on heavy contrast of tone to convey the resentful message.
A poem which I have recently read is: “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen. The main point Wilfred Owen tries to convey in this poem is the sheer horror of war. Owen uses many techniques to show his feelings, some of which I’ll be exploring.
the war the idyllic pastoral background; he began by writing war poetry reminiscent of ; he
Today I’m focusing on Wilfred Owen who is also recognized as the greatest English poet of the First World War. Owen volunteered to fight on 21 October 1915. Like many young men, propaganda had gotten the best of him, but he would soon experience first handedly the true horrors of war. Owen wrote of the disillusionment he, like others, felt at the time. He wrote out of his intense personal experience as a soldier and wrote with unrivalled power about the physical, moral and psychological trauma of the First World War. Nothing could have prepared Owens for the shock of war: for life in the trenches, sickness, death.
The First World War, also known as the Great War, began in about 1914 and went on until 1918. This brutal war was an extremely bloody time for Europe and the soldiers that fought in it. These men spent their days in trenches holding down bases and taking in attacks from all sides. The soldier's only free time was consumed with writing letters to those on the home front. The letters they wrote contain heart breaking stories of how their days were spent and the terrible signs of war. The War consumed them and many of them let out all their true feelings of war in their letters to loved ones. In The First World War: A brief History With Documents we can find some of these letters that help us understand what the First World War might have been like for these young and desperate soldiers.
‘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.
World War I impacted poetry profoundly. Poets who served in the war were using poetry to share their horrific stories about the hardships they faced. These poets became known as “war poets.” They wrote about the traumatic, life changing experiences that haunted them once the war was over. Intense poems started emerging that portrayed the mental and physical struggles soldiers faced. Two examples of the impact that World War I had on poetry is seen in the poems “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen and “Repression of War Experience” by Siegfried Sassoon.
It is evident that the socio-cultural context in which Wilfred Owen operated had a powerful impact upon his poetic motivation and the messages he conveyed through his work. Before exploring Wilfred Owen’s work we first must understand the society that Wilfred Owen lived in, to be able to really understand appreciate his poems and their impact on society. At the time in which he operated, Britain’s public opinion on warfare and conflicts were astonishingly positive, especially in the early stages of WW1. These false perception on war led the vast majority of male citizens to perceive war recruitment as an opportunity to set off on ‘terrific adventures’ and earn immense amounts of honour for their families and nation. Government propaganda meant that soldiers believed that they were gathering fame and fortune in the name of Great Britain. This cruel and false perception of warfare which in turn led to a steady rate of volunteers for the war and included Wilfred Owen himself. The men who did not go and fight for their nations were perceived by society as cowards as
The two poems about World War 1, ‘The Soldier’ by Rupert Brooke, and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ by Wilfred Owen, each present their views in different ways. World War one started in 1914 and ended after four years. There are two main responses from soldiers. The two approaches have been written each in these poems. Both have similarities and differences. They are conveyed in different ways that affect the reader more at some points and less than others.
The poetic techniques used in Wilfred Owen’s war poetry sweep the reader from the surface of knowing to the essence of truly appreciating his ideas. Through sonnets, Para rhymes, ironic titles, voices and strong imagery, not only is the reader able to comprehend to the futility and the horrors of the Great War, but also they can almost physically and mentally empathise with those who fought. Through the three poems examined, it is evident that Owen goes to great effort to describe the conditions and thoughts of the First World War, thus his works are considered an invaluable asset to the modern literature.
War alters a person in many aspects. War changes their perspective of lives, leaves physical scars, Changes their goals and ambitions, or devastates a soldier completely. We will never really feel the amount of change in the soldiers- not as much as the soldiers themselves. War takes away the soldiers’ youth, taking away all their energy and spirit that once radiated out of them. All good hopes and good thoughts about war will pass into oblivion. Lastly, I would like to end on a quote that was included in the speech of a world war two soldier: ”I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity.”