Comparing Romeo and Juliet to War Poetry

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Comparing Romeo and Juliet to War Poems Having looked at five war poems, three anti-war and two pro-war. It is apparent that conflict is shown through different techniques used by the poets, such as visual imagery, economical language and monosyllabic words, which are very effective. The main poem I have analysed is Dulce et Decorum Est. This is very much an anti-war poem written by Wilfred Owen. In this poem, Owen is exposing and expressing his pain and the futility of war. The poem consists of four stanzas, but not all are equal lengths. The last stanza is the longest. I believe this is because Owen wants it to stand out as it is the most important stanza. Arguably the third stanza has only two lines, therefore Owen is wanting this stanza to stand out. The poem’s narrative style is written in the first person. The reason for this could be that Owen is expressing his own pain and memories from his experiences from being a soldier in the trenches during World War One which is a connection to another anti-war poem called ‘The Man He Killed’. The narrative style of this poem is also first person, but not because Thomas Hardy is talking about his experiences, it is as if the reader is overhearing his conversation and he is talking to us, the reader. The pace of the first four lines in stanza one is very fast. Owen immediately uses a simile and lots of visual imagery. “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge” The way in which Owen has described the men, the soldiers, in the trenches is far from being heros, in fact, it is as if they are low level and very insignificant and even possibly “beggars” referring to witches. When thinking of witches, visual imagery is created, making the reader imagine old, decrepit and haggard people, again the image being far from a hero. Where as in contrast the poem
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