Poetry_Essay

"Dulce et decorum est" and "A Message From Tony Blair To The People of Iraq" - poetry essay "Dulce Et Decorum Est" and "A Message From Tony Blair to the People of Iraq" are two poems about war which have similar themes. "Dulce Et Decorum Est" was written by Wilfred Owen, a soldier in The Great War. "A Message from Tony Blair" was written by David Roberts whilst he was on tour in Iraq. The two poems are very good for comparing and contrasting as they have similar themes and messages, but are different in style. "Dulce Et Decorum Est" tells us of the horrors of war. Sick and wounded soldiers, gas attacks and the lie that dying in battle is glorious and heroic. "A Message from Tony Blair" has a similar theme, the death and destruction caused by war. Both poems cover similar topics but they are both written in very different ways. The first similarity prominent between the two poems are the images the poets create of war and how they are both negative. In "Dulce Et Decorum Est", Owen describes one particular scene, the death of a soldier, as "If you could hear at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs". He focuses on small-scale, detailed destruction of one man. The gruesome description is fantastic as it uses at lot of negative words, like "gargling" and "froth-corrupted". This creates an appaling picture that nobody would ever want to see. In "A Message from Tony Blair" David Roberts describes the methods used by the troops to destroy a town by saying "We destroyed your TV station, we cut your phones". This is referring to the Brittish soldiers in Iraq and what they did in an attempt to win the war. They destroyed the TV stations and phone lines so the Iraqis had no effective means of long-distance communication, which would almost certainly cause unrest. Both poets describe scenes of destruction, and this similarity is prominent throughout the poems. The most obvious difference between the poems is the way in which each poet describes the scene. Wilfred Owen uses a lot of metaphors, such as "As under a green sea, I saw him drowning". This is referring to the gas used in the First World war. The "green sea" is describing the way that the gas falls onto the bottom of the trench and lingers there, creating almost a green sea. It corrupted your lungs which stopped you from being able to breathe, which is where the 'I saw him drowning' part comes from. Owen creates scenes of horror this way. In "A Message from Tony Blair", Roberts uses a much more direct approach at description. He says 'Your cities shake and thunder with our bombs". The bombs are so powerful that they shake the city with the sheer force they create and the loud booming noise resembles the sound of thunder. The description is very direct and to the point, unlike Owen's which is almost cryptic. Each poets have very similar, negative views towards war. Owen is strongly against the false notion that dying in battle for your country is glorious, the highest achievement a man can accomplish. This can been seen when Owen describes the death of his friend as "his hanging face, like a Devil's sick of sin". This horrifying image of his friend's death shows exactly how terrible it is to die in battle. He refers to his friends deformed face as the Devil's, a shocking sight. This comparison is even worse when you think that the poem was written during the First World War, a time when the majority of people were religeous and thought of the devil as the pinnacle of evil. Robert's negativity towards war is more general. He uses sarcasm and a persona of Tony Blair to show this. He says things like "We have the right to decide your fate" to make you think of the mindset of Tony Blair and his feelings on war, and how wrong it is. We do not have the right to decide another nation's fate. This shows how each poem is very similar in the ideas they express. Both poets have very different styles of writing. Owen is very traditional in that his poem is well structured and there is a regular rhyme scheme. These create a regular beat with makes the poem fluid and easy to read. It follows the 'rules' of poetry, which could reflect his experiences during the war. The first world war was simpler than it is now, which I think was passed on to Owen's poem. On the other hand, Robert's poem is a lot more modern and almost chaotic. There is no regular rhyme scheme and all the stanzas are all different lengths. Again, I think this is a reflection of the fact that modern warfare is very chaotic. Many more civilians die, and the weapons themselves are bigger and cause more chaos. Each poet uses different styles of writing and this is very obvious when comparing the poems. Before I started writing this essay I enjoyed "A Message from Tony Blair to the People of Iraq" more as a poem, but as I wrote this essay and truly thought about techniques, structure, themes and messages I now enjoy and respect "Dulce Et Decorum Est" a lot more. It is the more complex of the two and goes about getting its message across in a much more interesting way. Word Count: 914 (I reduced it significantly)