War poetry comparisson

Poetry comparison mini essay

War poetry was very popular during the First World War (1914-1918 .The reason that it was written as a poem was because you can get a lot of points and feelings across in a short piece of writing which makes it a very powerful piece of writing . War poetry was mostly written at the beginning of the war to inspire people to fight for their country . But others written towards the end of the First World War tell us how terrible it is and how nobody should have to

experience the horror . Two of the poems in class that we have been studying that show this are The Dead by Rupert Brooke and Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen . In this essay I will be looking at both poems in more detail and I will be comparing and contrasting both

The first poem we studied was The Dead by Rupert Brook written at the beginning of the war in 1914 . The main point he was trying to get across was how noble it is to die for your country . We can see this on the third line of the poem when he says dying has made us rarer gifts than gold . This means that if you die for you country then you is more important Gold . This makes people want to go into war and die for their country because it makes them feel very noble . He also says And we have come into our heritage ' this also makes people want to be a part of the war because it is saying that they will never be forgotten and will always be a part of history . He also uses some techniques to get his point across . One of these is the Oxymoron rich Dead ' on the first line . This means that the soldiers were lucky to have the chance to die for there country and that dying for your country is the best way to die . He also uses the metaphor paid his subjects with the royal wage ' on the fourth line of the second stanza . This means that the soldiers were being paid with extreme honour , more than any amount of money

The next poem we studied was Deulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen written at the end of the war in 1917 . The main point that Wilfred Owen was trying to get across was very different from Rupert Brooke 's . Owen told the truth about how bad the war was and he was trying to persuade people not to go to war . We first see this on the first line when he is saying how bad the conditions of the soldiers were in Bent double like old beggars under sacks ' This means that the soldiers were like old people struggling being forced to march on half dead . Another way he showed how bad war was was when he says men marched asleep ' and distant rest . This shows how tired the soldiers were...