Writers' Attitudes to War in Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen and The Dead by Rupert Brooke

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Writers' Attitudes to War in Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen and The Dead by Rupert Brooke The two poems chosen are, the first one is, 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' by Wilfred Owen and the second poem is, 'The Dead' written by Rupert Brooke. Both poems are post nineteen-fourteen. They are First World War poems. Anthem for Doomed Youth is the title of the first poem. There is assonance in the title creating a particular kind of word music as there is a repetition of sounds. In this case anthem refers to a hymn of praise or devotion. The poet uses this in his title ironically to challenge what admiration is accorded to the young soldiers. The structure of the poem is a sonnet. Usually sonnets are associated with love but his poem is more anti-love or it could be said a love that has turned bad. By using a sonnet it makes the poem stand out more. Owen has used this structure for the poem ironically. The young males have so much patriotic love and are so eager to serve their country, but then this love turns sour. They spend time rotting away in the trenches only to be killed in the blink of an eye by a machine gun. Not only have they gone without the holy right of a funeral but both theirs and their loves ones lives are ruined. Most of the lines use iambic pentameter. In one ten syllable line, five syllables are stressed and five are unstressed. This is also called blank verse. The line below has been marked to show which syllables are stressed with the symbol, X and which are unstressed with the symbol, /. This line starts with a stressed syllable. X / X / X / X / X / 'The shrill, de-men-ted choirs and wail-ing shell... ... middle of paper ... ...wers the tenderness of patient minds, G And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds. Wilfred Owen 1893-1918 The Dead -------- A BLOW out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! B There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, B But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. A These laid the world away; poured out the red C Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be D Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, D That men call age; and those who would have been, C Their sons, they gave, their immortality. E Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth, F Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain. E Honour has come back, as a king, to earth, G And paid his subjects with a royal wage; F And Nobleness walks in our ways again; G And we have come into our heritage. Rupert Brooke

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