Examples Of Heroism In World War One Poetry

The Solider by Rupert Brooke and Dulce et decorum Est by Wilfred Owen, are two poems written during the time of World War One (WW1). Both poems are an example of each authors’ perception on war, Owens being about the spiteful reality and Brookes about the glory of dying one’s country. Although they are two very different perspectives both are based around the horrors of war and the unimaginable amount of deaths that WW1 had caused.

From the earliest records of history, accounts of war have been portrayed as valiant acts of heroism. Children and adults alike have gathered together to hear tales of war and its glory. From the stories of Alexander the Great to recent-day movies like Saving Private Ryan, war has been praised and exalted with words such as bravery, honor, and freedom. However, Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" shows the ugly, horrible side of fighting. By use of gripping words and vivid descriptions, Owen paints incredible pictures of what World War I was really like. He tears away the glory and drama and reveals the real essence of fighting: fear, torture, and death. No

Literature and poetry are a reflection of society. The words are reflected in numerous feelings that we can almost touch and can be deeply felt in its reach. Most poets expressed their perception and emotion through their writings. Unfortunately the art and poetry describes one of the worst things that human can do to one another. The legalized murder called "war." Hence, this type of self-reflection called "poetry" has help create new fundamental ideas and values towards our society. In this essay, I will discuss the issue of the "War Poetry" during the "Great War" along with comparing and contrasting two talented renowned poets; Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) and Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967).

Wilfred Owen is almost begging someone (probably the ones who recruit the youth) to tell the world the truth about war, how tarrying everyone is and how difficult is to go on, to keep the hope. For the soldiers there are no dreams of a noble death that everyone will remember through stories. There are no legends that will become myth in their fighting, but real people and real horrific death. The concept of “heroism” that exists from classical literature is not longer valid.

One is to think of war as one of the most honorable and noble services that a man can attend to for his country, it is seen as one of the most heroic ways to die for the best cause. The idea of this is stripped down and made a complete mockery of throughout both of Wilfred Owen’s poems “Dulce Et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. Through his use of quickly shifting tones, horrific descriptive and emotive language and paradoxical metaphors, Owen contradicts the use of war and amount of glamour given towards the idea of it.

Para-rhymes, in Owen’s poetry, generate a sense of incompleteness while creating a pessimistic, gloomy effect to give an impression of sombreness. Strong rhyming schemes are often interrupted unexpectedly with a para-rhyme to incorporate doubt to every aspect of this Great War. Who are the real villains and why are hundreds of thousands of lives being wasted in a war with no meaning? In ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, the consistent sonnet rhyming scheme is disturbed by a half rhyme, “guns … orisons”, to show how the soldiers all died alone with only the weapons that killed them by their side, and a visual rhyme, “all … pall” to indicate that the reality of war is entirely the opposite to what it seems - no glory, no joy and no heroism, but only death and destruction. Owen occasionally works with this technique in a reverse approach to create similar thought. For instance, the assonance, consonance and half rhyme based poem, ‘The Last Laugh’, contains an unforeseen full rhyme, “moaned … groaned”, to emphasise that nothing is ever fixed in war except the ghastly fact that the weapons are the true winners. Different forms of Para rhymes often work together with common schemes to ably bring out the main ideas of Owen’s poetry.

Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively conveys his perspectives on human conflict through his experiences during The Great War. Poems such as ‘Futility’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ portray these perceptions through the use of poetic techniques, emphasising such conflicts involving himself, other people and nature. These themes are examined in extreme detail, attempting to shape meaning in relation to Owen’s first-hand encounters whilst fighting on the battlefield.

Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poem made of four stanzas in an a, b, a, b rhyme scheme. There is hardly any rhythm to the entire poem, although Owen makes it sound like it is in iambic pentameter in some lines. Every stanza has a different amount of lines, ranging from two to twelve. To convey the poem’s purpose, Owen uses an unconventional poem style and horrid, graphic images of the frontlines to convey the unbearable circumstances that many young soldiers went through in World War I. Not only did these men have to partake in such painful duties, but these duties contrasted with the view of the war made by the populace of the mainland country. Many of these people are pro-war and would never see the battlefield themselves. Owen’s use of word choice, imagery, metaphors, exaggeration, and the contrast between the young, war-deteriorated soldiers and populace’s favorable view of war creates Owen’s own unfavorable view of the war to readers.

Owen uses this stanza as a tool to build-up the story and is able to

War – it isn’t desired by anyone. If we can, we try to avoid it as much as possible. But there are times when war can’t be avoided. This fighting ultimately leads to thousands of innocent lives lost – men, women and children. We grieve their deaths, we mourn their deaths and we feel saddened by their deaths.

The poems “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen and “Who’s for the Game?” by Jessie Pope are direct antitheses of each other, such that their views about war, the chosen literary schemes, and the effects on the readers are exact opposites in each view. “Who’s for the Game?” is a strong pro-war poem with a simplistic rhyme scheme, basic meaning, shallow imagery, and is intended to provoke and challenge young men into joining the war. Conversely, “Dulce et Decorum Est” is an anti-war poem with a relatively more complicated rhyme scheme, complex meaning, deep imagery, and is intended to discourage those who write such propaganda as “Who’s for the Game?”.

As proven by various poems written throughout history, it is true that poets represent war as ennobling or devastating, according to their societies’ views. Rupert Brooke proved this statement in 1914, when he reflected society’s views of World War One as ennobling, in his poem “The Soldier”. Wilfred Owen then reflected his society’s new negative attitude towards war in 1917, with his World War One-themed poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est”. Siegfried Sassoon also showed that society thought of war as a devastating event, with his experiences reflected in his statement to his commanding officer, entitled “Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration”, and his poem about World War One, “Suicide in the Trenches”, published in 1917 and 1918, respectively.

After doing several hours of preliminary research, I am going to write my paper on the World War I poets and how their poetry reflects their disillusionment of the war. As of right now, I plan to focus my research paper on Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen. Initially, when researching World War I poets, I was very intrigued by the utilization of rhetoric and nationalist propaganda to encourage the old romantic ideas of duty, valor, and courage from the public. However, I noticed the required readings for class displayed the unpleasant accounts of war that those who did not serve in the war were completely oblivious about. Therefore, I will begin my paper by briefly discussing the poets’ lives and their attitudes regarding the war prior to actually serving. I will find evidence of their attitudes prior to war in some of their literary works. Then, the main focus of my paper will be how the World War I poets display their disillusionment of war throughout their literary works and how their attitudes shifted once they served in the war.

War is a horrible thing that can negatively change peoples lives forever. During world war one many poets wrote about the good and bad they saw in war. Rupert Brookes Had a very positive view on war. In his poem "The Soldier" he shows war as a great way to see the world and make new friends, when really its quite the opposite. Wilfred Owens portrays war as a thing not of glory but of death and suffering. His poem "Dulce et Decorum est" shows the terror of gas attacks and tries to convince the readers that it's really not worth dying for your country. This Essay will argue through the use of language features and quotes how we see big differences between views on war. Through two short poems we're shown that it's glorious and gracious to die for your country, and then that its all a trick to get more soldiers into the terrible trenches to try and turn the tide of the battle.

Poems using strong poetic technique and devices are able to create a wide range of emotions from the readers. Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively uses these poetic techniques and devices to not only create unsettling images about war but to provide his opinion about war itself with the use of themes within his poem. The use of these themes explored Owen’s ideas on the futility of war and can be seen in the poems: Anthem for Doomed Youth, Futility and The Next War. The poems provide unsettling images and belief of war through the treatment of death, barbaric nature of war and the futility of war.