Jesse Pope vs Wilfred Owen

475 Words2 Pages
Although both “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Who's for the Game” were written during World War I, both poems had very opposing view points towards it. Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est was written as a direct response to Jessie Pope’s “Who’s for the Game”. The author’s created opposing impressions of the war through their poetry. Jessie Pope wrote 'Who's for the Game' to encourage young men into joining the British army. The poem is a very nationalistic example of the type of propaganda that was used to help inspire young boys and men to join the army. It made war sound like a fun sport game shown in the quotation, “Who's for the game, the biggest that's played, the red crashing game of a fight?” This of course contradicts what war is like in reality. Jessie Pope also endorsed patriotism by saying that going to war is “giving your country a hand.” She appeals to their passion for fighting their country, over their fear of being killed. She personifies England as feminine. She married the idea that it is every man’s duty to protect or save their women to it is also therefore every man’s duty to protect their country; thus making them a hero. Throughout the poem she uses simple language that everyone can understand. This helped her appeal to a widespread audience. The tone of the poem is positive and hopeful. It seems like a romanticized adventure story, which is totally opposite to the realities of war. For the soldiers coming back from the war who had first had experience on the front lines, this poem seemed unrealistic and didn’t represent the true horrors of what war is really like. Wilfred Owen was one of many soldiers who had experienced the Western Front and its horrors first handedly. He opposed Pope’s views in her poem and thought it was an unjust mythical description of what war was really like. He wrote Dulce et Decorum Est as a direct response to
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