Wilfred Owen's War Poems

Wilfred Owen's War Poems

The poems Dulce et decorum est, The Send-off and Anthem for Doomed

Youth were all written by Wilfred Owen in response to his experience

in WWI. Examine the views and attitudes the poet conveys in at least

two of the poems.

The two poems Dulce et decorum est and Anthem for Doomed Youth by

Wilfred Owen are both set during the First World War and Owen uses

them to express his feelings and attitudes towards war. In Dulce et

decorum est he describes a gas attack, using vivid imagery to describe

how it sill haunts his dreams whereas in Anthem for Doomed Youth Owen

is criticising the way that soldiers were buried on the battlefield.

The title 'Dulce et decorum est' is a phrase that was written by the

Roman author Horace and is also used in the last two lines of the

poem:

"Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori"

This phrase means "that it is sweet and fitting to die for your

country" but in the poem Owen contradicts this by using words such as

"old beggars", "hags" and "cursed." He does this to convey the image

of war and to inform the reader that the phrase is not true, showing

his negative viewpoint towards war. The poem has an alternate rhyme

scheme and four stanzas.

In the first stanza Owen use a slow pace using words such as "limped

on" and "bent-double" to show how weary the soldiers are, letting the

reader see what it is really like at war, not the image that was

portrayed by many poets of that time of the soldiers marching proudly

along in smart uniforms. He is showing what war does to people and how

pointless war is. He also uses "bent-double" as hyperbole to create

the impression of...

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...oems Owen appeals to the reader's sense of hearing "gargling"

"wailing" and by doing this is able to show how horrific war was to

him. Also in both poems Owen shows the reader's his views by conveying

the helplessness of the people portrayed, both the soldier drowning in

the gas attack in Dulce et decorum est and the "doomed youth" in the

title of the second poem, knowing what was going to happen but not

being able to do any thing about it.

In conclusion I feel that both of these poems are effective in the way

that they convey the realism of war in contrast to the glamorised

version portrayed by some poets at that time and although they are

both by the same poet they show the different emotions shown by people

during the First World War challenging the ideas of the other poets of

that time who had not experienced it.