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.
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.
What mattered was the truth of war and what he felt he must share and let people know. The pararhyme here links key words and ideas, without detracting from the meaning and solemnity of the poem, as a full rhyme sometimes does. However, the failure of two similar words to rhyme and the obvious omission of a full rhyme creates a sense of discomfort and incompleteness. It is a discordant note that matches well to the disturbing mood of the poem. Therefore, Theme 1: Brutality and horrors of war (and their effect on the individual) Poem 1: topic sentence, quotes, techniques, analysis/ significance/ effect, link to question Poem 2: topic sentence, quotes, techniques, analysis/ significance/ effect, link to question Paragraph 2 To Owen, war is not sweet, nor is it honourable and these ideas are explored throughout the poem, Dulce et Decorum est.
I am going to do this by indicating what methods and techniques they use to affect the reader and make them feel emotion towards the soldiers. Owen uses irony with the title Dulce et decorum est because it translates to it is a “Sweet and right thing”. This is irony because the poem is trying to say that war is bad and not a sweet and right thing. Owen also uses these words to hit out to Jessie Pope, who was a propaganda poet and Owen disliked her. Pope thinks that war was good and it was Ok to die during it but Owen strongly disagreed with that.
Through his rhythms, dramatic description, and raw images, Owen seeks to convince that the horror of war far outweighs the patriotic clichés of those who glamorize war and increases my understanding of war and the horrors that come with it. A technique used to enhance the horrors of war is imagery. Such as, describing the soldiers as “bent double, like old beggars under sacks”. By using this simile, it provides the reader with an unexpected view and appearance of the soldiers, as you normally have an image of a soldier to be strong healthy looking men. The poet quickly erases this false image of a soldier replacing it with a description of a ‘beggar’.
Not So Sweet Nor Becoming Wilfred Owen was a man of two professions: writing and fighting. As a soldier in World War 1, Owen was horrified by his experiences and the tragedies he witnessed. These memories motivated him to write poems that relayed the truths of war. “Dulce Et Decorum Est” is perhaps the most famous of these pieces. When looking for a poem to analyze, this one jumped out at me; immediately upon reading its title, I thought of another piece of art that references the same phrase.
Identify what you consider to be the authors main purpose in producing each of the texts you have studied and explore, in depth, one or two main techniques used to achieve this purpose. The poems ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ by Wilfred Owen and ‘Suicide in the trenches’ by Siegfried Sassoon used the techniques of personal pronouns and irony to convey the poets feelings towards war. Before Owen and Sassoon all war poetry had been patriotic and was used to encourage recruitment of young men. However both Owen and Sassoon had witnessed the horrors of trench warfare first hand and their poetry was therefore realistic about the harsh realities of war. 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.
Owen seems to suggest that the artificialities of love pale in comparison to the true honour and love of men on the battlefield – men who cough, struggle, and die. Owen is calling attention to the authenticity of these soldiers' actions and finding within them meaning Alternatively this can interpreted as the soldier has a somewhat erotic feeling towards war and aspects of war e.g patriotism and his doubts for example Red lips are not so red” . shows that Owen is losing interest in fighting the war as he comes to realize its true form. This is then emphasized in line 5 with “your eyes lose lure”. Which show a versions of reality theme which is also found in another Owen poem; Dulce Et Decorum est where Owen shows the horrors of war and uses it to send a message to people at home who are as he refers to a common patriotic quote as “ The old lie”.
Writers used the spirit of the revolution to distinguish their poetic sensibilities. The affects of war are apparent in my review of the following sources on the subject of war and rebellion in Mary A. Favret’s “Coming Home: The Public Spaces of Romantic War,” Nancy Rosenblum’s “Romantic Militarism,” J.L. Talmon’s “Introduction and Romanticism” in Romanticism and Revolt: Europe 1815-1848, and Samuel Coleridge’s “Fears in Solitude.” Although these works concern themselves with different themes, the central subject depicted in each is the perception of war from those who were involved—directly and indirectly—and the ways in which they were affected. Favret’s chapter depicts war from the perspective of the English public and discusses the effects it had on the domestic front, as well as the ideology of the “war-widow”. In contrast to this, Rosenblum’s article explores the perception of war from the view of the solider and the tension between “Romantic militarism” and liberalism.
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.