War_Poem_Analysis

War Poem Analysis In this essay I am going to be analysing three poems and them comparing them to each other. I am going to be talking about the differences and the similarities of the poems. First I am going to be talking about the three poems in detail. The poem I am going to be analysing now is “Who’s for the Game” by Jessie Pope. This poem was meant to inspire and make young men join the war against the opposition. Jessie Pope was a poem writer in the time of the first world war. She wrote a lot of poems like this but this is the most famous. “Who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid' And who thinks he’d rather sit tight'” In this line she is trying to communicate that if you don’t go then you are a coward because you would rather sit tight while all your friends are fighting for their country. “Who wants a turn to himself in the show' And who wants a seat in the stand'” In this line she says that if you go then you’ll be famous and respected. If you don’t then you will have to watch your friends being respected and appreciated and have none for yourself. “Who knows it won’t be a picnic—not much— Yet eagerly shoulders a gun'” I think in this line she communicates that she does understand the evils of war. She says in this line whether or not you are ready to hold a gun with the intentions of killing someone. “Come along, lads” In this line she uses colloquial language again trying to get young men to join the cause. In the last stanza she is trying to make people feel patriotic. “Your country is up to her neck in a fight, And she’s looking and calling for you.” She is trying to say that the country is in war and it’s calling to you to help. She also call’s Britain a she and calling an object a she is showing a sign of affection to it. She is also calling Britain your mother like a motherland. I think this poem is very effective at making people patriotic and proud. For the job that it had it was very effective. Many people think that this poem is wrong and cruel but if you looked at the general view of war then it was a very common view. The general feeling people had was that the war was going to end a month with British forces winning. Also she was paid a lot of money for this poem and it was her job as a poet to write poems for people. I think though she had a hidden message in the poem because of these two lines: “red crashing game” and “ Yet eagerly shoulders a gun'” Red crashing game a bloody fight with many deaths and I have explained “Yet eagerly shoulders a gun” already. The next poem I am going to analyse is a poem called Dulce Et Decorum Est. The rough translation is “It is sweet and right”. This poem was a response to the poem I talked about before “Who’s for the Game”. A man called Wilfred Owen wrote this poem. He is considered as one of the best war writers and he was also a soldier in 1914. He died one week before World War One ended. This poem is about showing the reality of war. “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge” This line is talking about soldiers. Bent double is like a word for like old sick people, he is trying to say that these people who are only 20 years old have aged 20 or 30 years. Coughing like hags is to emphasize that these people act very old. Hags is a term associated with like old, ugly women.“Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs ” When he says haunting here he means haunting deaths. We had to turn our backs to the deaths of our friends is what I think he is trying to say. “Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod” In this line of the poem he is trying to say that people limped on with bloody feet. They had to or else they would die. “All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind” All went lame and blind. This line means that everyone was tired, hurt and injured but they walked on through the sludge. When he says the hoots of disappointed shells he means shells that have whizzed past you and missed you. “ GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime.” This is a piece of the poem, which tries to show the reality of war. “An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time” An ecstasy of fumbling means that their was a lot of grabbing about and smashing to try and get the masks. “But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime.”. This line means that there was one person who didn’t get there in time and was yelling and acting like a man on fire. It is trying to show the reality of war. “ In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” In this line he is trying to say that the death haunts him in his dreams knowing that he couldn’t help his “my helpless sight”. “He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” Is what happens in his dreams. “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory”. This whole sentence is about Jessie Pope. It is trying to say that if you could hear millions of people dying and screaming in pain, Then you would not tell people with such high spirits that war is a brilliant thing. “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.” The L is capital because it is trying to show that it is a major lie. “Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori” means it is sweet and right to die for your country. I think this poem is a good anti-war poem and that it is a good poem against the poem I was talking about before. Also in the poem when they say “My friend” this was originally Jessie Pope. This is one of my favorite poems because it shows the truth about the war and is inspirational. This poem I am going to be analysing is called The Square Dance even the name is Ironic. The Square Dance is a anti-war song like the last one. A historian looking back on the First World War wrote it. He’s called Roger Mc Gough. “In Flanders fields in Northern France They're all doing a brand new dance It makes you happy and out of breath And it's called the Dance of Death” Flander is a country in which thousands of men died. He uses a lot of irony in this sentence because a dance is associated with something happy and death is something very sad, and he combines it together. “ A dance for men - girls have no say in it For your partner is a bayonet”. This line means that only men could go to war and girls couldn’t. Also that you’d be holding onto your bayonet and relying on the gun for your life. “If you fall that's no disgrace Someone else will take your place 'Old soldiers never die. . .' . . .Only young ones”. This means that only inexperienced soldiers die because of their lack of training while older better soldiers like commanders sit back and watch the young men die. “In Flanders fields where mortars blaze They're all going the latest craze Khaki dancers out of breath Doing the glorious Dance of Death Doing the glorious Dance of Death. ” Khaki dancers I think here mean like exotic dancers or a extravagant display. Glorious because of it is glorified and as he uses repitition in the Dance of Death like at the beginning. I think this poem is written in more of a third person view than the others. It is also a lot more ironic than others because they use the continued metaphor of the dancing as war. This poem is more telling you what happens in war and I don’t think it discourages you as much as the first one where they use a lot of imagery. I think this poem was not meant to discourage men from going to war, maybe he was telling the truth about the war looking back at it. Similarities and Differences I think that the last two poems were a lot more similar to each other though Dulce Et Decorum Est was a lot more visual and most of it was about the haunting dreams and the horrible deaths of the war. While the second was more secluded and you sort of had to decipher the words to all the lines. The first one compared to all of them is very basic and very easy to understand it is only meant to rally young men to join the cause and is the only poem out of the rest which does this. Dulce Et Decorum Est as I said before was meant to oppose this poem and is about the really bad things about the war it is very visual and is sad. The third is quite a happy poem at first glance but the lyrics are very Ironic and show War in a kind of happy way but at the same time sad and is a lot less sad and visual the Dulce Et Decorum Est. Dominic Mark Ng 9M1