How are differing attitudes to war expressed in the poetry of WWI

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How are differing attitudes to war expressed in the poetry of WWI

that you have read? You should compare England to her sons’ with

Dulce et Decorum Est.

How are differing attitudes to war expressed in the poetry of WWI that

you have read? You should compare ‘England to her sons’ with ‘Dulce et

Decorum Est’. You may refer to other poems. Remember to consider the

influence of historical contents on the poet’s viewpoints.

In this poem I am going to compare two poems from World

War I. The to poems that I will be comparing are ‘England to her sons’

and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. ‘England to her sons’ was written by W.N.

Hodgson in 1914, ‘Dulce et decorum est’ was written by Wilfred Owen in

1918. These two poems that I am going to study have very different

ideas towards the war.

In the poem ‘England to her sons’ the attitude towards the war is very

pro-war, however ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is very anti-war. ‘England to

her sons’ is pro-war because it was written at the beginning of war in

1914 and was trying to get men to enlist for the army. ‘Dulce et

Decorum Est’ is anti-war because it was written during the war in 1918

and so the poet will have experienced the war and is trying to tell

the public what war is really like. ‘England to her sons’ uses a lot

of propaganda, for example, ‘Free in service’, when you are at war you

are not free in service, you do what you are told and this is the same

with any service, also this poem is telling us how to feel about war.

In ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ no propaganda is used because the poet is

trying to portray the real image of war.

Each poem has very different themes in ‘England to her sons’ one of

the themes is propaganda but in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ there is a

theme of the lies of propaganda, ‘The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

pro patria mori.’ (Meaning ‘It is sweet and meet to die for your

country’) and it is saying that this is all a lie. In ‘England to her

sons’ another theme is men to enlist, ‘I hear you thrilling to the

trumpet call of war’, people are not thrilled at the news of war and

trumpets do not call. The poet is trying to make the start of war a

joyous occasion. Also in ‘England to her sons’ another theme is

responsibility and duty of war, ‘Steeled to suffer uncomplaining’ but

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