Main ideas in War Poetry The main idea in war poetry, written during World War One – 1914-18, is the harsh reality of war. Poets such as Wilfred Owen use the language techniques of simile, rhyme, repetition and personification to help convey the main idea. Owen uses techniques to paint a grim picture of what war was like and how it affected people. Through this, we see that war is often glorified, thus Owen was able to counter the glorification of war. After reading war poems we are able to get a true idea of how horrific war was and learn of its negative consequences.
Through his poems, Owen highlights the unjust experiences of soldiers to create a protest against the bureaucracy because of how they justified the harming and killing of many for their own political gain. He does this by highlighting the actions and inactions of the bureaucracy that contribute to benefit of the administration. This can be explored in his poems ‘Parable of the Old Man and the Young’ (Parable) and the epic war poem ‘Disabled’. These two poems employ Owens message of anti-war sentiment to establish a connection with the audience through his manipulation of poetic techniques. Owen highlights such unjust experiences of the soldiers to augment his argument against the bureaucracy.
Dulce et Decorum Est Written Explanation War is often depicted as glorious and heroic however it deceives by being a connotation of hell! In the bottom right of the poster, the image shown is comparing the soldier on the left to an old man. This comparison is shown in the opening lines of the poem as Owen states: “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks” This is a dramatic opening to the poem which through the use of power visual image shows the pain that the soldier is going throughout war and the inability to move. The soldier is not fit, healthy and glorious like the propaganda posters (on the left) showed. Owen compares soldiers fighting in war to sick old men because it shows that soldiers are like outcasts from society.
Sassoon’s poetry described the horrors of the war and how disgusting it is. Two poems which show the perspective of war is: Firstly, Counter-Attack, which describes how war is like; and secondly, died of wounds, which show the condition of war. The poems relate to the feeling and emotion war creates. Also it shows how horrible war is. The techniques that Sassoon has used in the poems are: imagery, simile, metaphor and onomatopoeia.
Owen commented on his poetry that ‘my subject is war, and the pity of it… all a poet can do is warn.’ Owen and Sassoon were both trying to warn young men against war and inform the public on how brutal and disgusting war actually is In both poems, after describing the obscene conditions of war and the impact that these conditions had on the soldiers, the poets dedicated a stanza to condemning the reader on any encouragement they may have had towards young men going to war. They did this through the use of personal pronouns. In ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ Owen condemns the use of the saying “Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori” (It is sweet and fitting to die for your country) by using personal pronouns to involve the reader in the reality of war “If you could hear at every jolt/ the blood come gargling from the froth corrupted lungs… my friend you would not tell with such high zest… the old lie: Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori.” In ‘Suicide in the trenches’ personal pronouns are also used to disapprove of the encouragement of war “You smug faced crowds… who cheer when soldier lads march by/ sneak home and pray you’ll never know/ the hell where youth and laughter go.” Personal pronouns are used in order to involve the
Wilfred Owen was an active soldier during WWI, who used his horrific experiences during the war to write his poems. His poems stemmed from his views on war, as he believed that although war was sometimes necessary, it was futile and evil. Two of his poems, ‘Exposure’ and ‘Disabled’ both reveal the price paid by soldiers during WWI. ‘Exposure’ examines the more psychological effects on the soldiers and is written from the view of the soldiers on the front line, ‘Disabled’ shows the aftermath and repercussion of fighting in WWI and the physical damage it caused. The first word in ‘Exposure’ is ‘our’ and is written in first person plural, showing the reader that Owen wanted to convey the plight of the universal soldier and how they all suffered the same fate, no matter their side.
Introduction Paragraph 1 In his poem, Strange Meeting, Owen recreates the horror of war through his shocking and realistic account of the experiences faced by soldiers on the battlefields during World War One. “And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, - By his dead smile I knew we stood in hell”. Owen has used first person and a pararhyme to reinforce the brutality and horrors of war. Owen came to the realisation, by talking to this man, that no one there was truly alive, breathing or not breathing. What mattered was the truth of war and what he felt he must share and let people know.
Anthem For Doomed Youth is a sonnet written by Wilfred Owen about the realities of war. Wilfred Owen was a soldier during WW1 and therefore understands fully the true experiences of war. He was against war and was appalled by the effects of war on people and their families. The purpose of the poem is to inform the public of the true realities of war and how young men where dying needlessly. This was because during war times the media would tell the public that the war going great and that the men where doing just fine, but this obviously just wasn’t true.
The Iliad is the first great book, and the first great book about the suffering and loss of war. Homer, for reasons of his own, suppressed the truth about the Trojan war- in reality, the Greeks lost. Homer once said, “Men learn with difficulty… But they are deceived only too readily”. In The Iliad, two characters have the narrative urge, and something approaching a synoptic view of the scenes surging around them. Achilles sings stories of heroes' deeds in battle, and Helen embroiders scenes of fighting on an elaborate textile.
Suicide in the Trenches – A hidden massage of a personal abhorrence How is war like? Siegfried Sassoon’s poem “Suicide in the Trenches” answers this question effectively through communication of his personal abhorrence of accruing bloodshed in war. He presents his hidden massage by contrasting images of a desperate young soldier and the conceited crowds to reveal his resentment of war. Sassoon uses the two main components to presents extreme abomination are language and content. Sassoon uses blameful language to describe the ruthless of government in order to reveal the ugly hidden massage as settling the situation.