War_Poetry

First World War Poetry. Pre-1914 Prose Assignment. “Choose two patriotic poems and two poems that reveal the reality of war. Write about the four poems in as much detail as possible, comparing the different attitudes of the poets.” In English, we have read four World War One poems: ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, ‘Disabled’, ‘The Call’ and ‘Who’s For The Game'’ Two different authors have wrote these four poems, Wilfred Owen, who had served his country in the Great War and Jessie Pope, who had never experienced the frontline. This becomes obvious when one reads a poem by a chosen poet, as Jessie Pope was for getting the troops to sign up, while Wilfred Owen had a completely anti-war persona, which had developed after fighting in the First World War. I shall describe fully and deeply in the upcoming paragraphs the attitudes of both the authors. It all began in August 1914. Otherwise known as the Great War. The cause of it all was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, whom was the heir to the Austrian throne at that time. This killing happened on the 28th June 1914 in Bosnia, a province that Austria had seized in 1908. Austria suspected that Serbia had plotted the murder and so attacked Serbia. Russia supported Serbia; therefore Germany declared was on Russia, and France had stood by the Dual Alliance it had made with Russia. Great Britain and the Commonwealth, France, Belgium, Russia, Serbia and Japan formed the Allies, later to be joined by the United States, Italy, Romania, Greece and several other countries. On the other side were the ‘central powers’ of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Which were soon joined by Turkey and later, Bulgaria. The chief cause of the war was Germany’s desire to spread and to obtain more colonies for its growing population and trade. Its powerful neighbour, Germany, dragged the empire of Austria-Hungary into the conflict. When the war began, most of large nations on the European mainland were ready with armies of several million men raised by a system of ‘conscription’ by which all fit men had to serve for two or three years in their armed forces. Britain had a much smaller volunteer army until conscription began in 1916. At first, many believed the war would not last more than a year. Politicians and civilians, especially women, encouraged their men to join the fight, little knowing the human cost. A huge loss of life, many causalities, horrendous mental and physical injuries. Those soldiers who returned were reluctant to talk of their experiences, so horrible it had been. Wilfred Owen was born on the 18th March 1893, in an English town called Shropshire. Owen was a British poet and served his country in the First World War. His poetry was renowned because of its shocking and graphic content, on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare. In his early life, he was the youngest of four children, with a mixed English and Welsh ancestry. Wilfred lived in his grandfather’s house with his four siblings and two parents, Thomas and Susan Owen. When his grandfather past away, their family were forced to move into the temporary housing of the back streets Merseyside Borough. Before the outbreak of the World War, he paid his bills by teaching English and French at the Berlitz School of Languages in Bordeaux. Owen enlisted himself into the army on the 21st October 1915, and on 4th June 1916 he was promoted as a second lieutenant in The Manchester Regiment. He started the war as a cheerful and optimistic bloke, but his views sharply changed. Primarily, he looked down on his fellow troops for their ill-mannered behavior. However, Owen's outlook on the war changed dramatically after two traumatic experiences. Firstly, he was blown high into the air by a trench mortar, landing on the remains of a fellow officer. Soon after, he became trapped for days on end in an old German trench. After these two events, Owen was diagnosed as suffering from ‘shell shock’ and sent to Craig Lockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh for treatment. It was whilst healing at the hospital, that he met his friend Siegfried Sassoon, a man who inspired Wilfred Owen to write his glorious, graphic, but honest work. Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was killed in action at the Battle of the Sambre, a week before the war ended. In an ironic moment, the telegram from the War Office announcing his death was delivered to his home as the town’s church bells were ringing in celebration of the Armistice. Disabled is a poem by Wilfred Owen, it is a war poem about the horrendous reality of a wheel chair stricken soldier. The poet begins by describing his current condition, “He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark” A simple sentence that contains a ghastly metaphor. The metaphor being dark, which may refer to death' This is a bleak, grim picture. “And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey.” This implies that he may get dressed formally everyday; to once again remember that he has no able life outside of his home of care. The word ‘shivered’ also creates a cold feel. A metaphor once again for death, as a body with no soul, is a cold body. He may have lost his soul/warmth out on Flanders fields. “Legless, sewn short at elbow” In non-poetry terminology says that he has no legs and had lost an arm. Thus creating a pitiful picture of a young man with no hope. No hope of his life ever being the same again. Even only the third line into the poem disabled, and Wilfred has already created a tragic and horrendous in-sight into this gentleman’s life. The next three and a half lines go onto a merry visual image of joyful choirboys singing songs of praise in a local park. The voices are described “Of play and pleasure”. Songs that brought feelings of happiness to his what was once soul till the final line stating “Till gathering sleep had mothered them away from him”, which suggests that he has no mother to return to, as the boys are collected by loving parent(s). The second stanza starts of with the line “About this time Town used to swing so gay” This gives the reader the impression that times before he had went away to fight for his country, it was cheery and worriless. He could experience meeting up with girls as any other person around his age could. However now after his disability, he is looked upon as having ‘some queer disease’ because he is no longer attractive to the opposite sex. In the next stanza, it opens with the line “There was an artist silly for his face, for it was younger than his youth, last year.” He was once an excellent subject to draw, but due to his injury and the loss of his youth, he no longer meets the expectations of the artist. Also the disabled soldier has a face that looks older than his age. “Now he is old; his back will never brace” This is due to an injury fighting in the war and may refer to his sexual life, as a lot of information in this poem does. Another quote from the poem is at the end of the twentieth line, which is “spurted from his thigh.” This is a clear parody of sexual ejaculation. Owen takes the use of erotic language at this point, referring to blood instead of semen. The irony being that is a loss of life, instead of the creation of it. His enlisting in the army to impress females has lead to him getting injured to repulse the opposite sex. “Someone said he would look like a god in kilts” This implies that he was in a Scottish regiment in the army, and suggests that he is a vain man, as this feeds his ego - The fact that he was asked to join. “To please the Giddy jilts” This is a Scottish term for a young woman. This was the one of the main reasons many men enrolled in the army, to impress the opposite sex. “Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.” The sadness of the soldier's life is heightened. Clearly he was under-aged when he enlisted and therefore is still young. “Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal' Recalls the image of the football match earlier. Line twenty-two implies that he was carried from the field shoulder-high, possibly as the result of scoring the winning goal. Here, despite having achieved far more, for far greater a loss than a 'blood- smeared leg', the crowd's reception is more hollow. “Do what things the rules consider wise” The fine young athlete has been reduced to a state of dependency on others and helplessness, which is backed up by the pitiful closing repetition of “Why don't they come'” The stanza has him waiting for others to do things for him, he ‘spends a few sick years’, ‘takes whatever pity’ others choose to offer him; he is passed over by the women's attentions, as he expresses his grief about the cold and hopes that someone will put him to bed. “Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes passed from him to the strong men that were whole,” Repeating again the loss of the soldier, this time in his attractiveness to the opposite sex. 'Whole' implying that he is incomplete, less than a man. Ironically he is now dependent on young women to put him to bed, in contrast with his pre-war masculinity/ vanity when he could expect to take women to bed. “Why don't they come” This line can be linked to the recruiting poster of 1914, 'Will they never come'’ Several recruiting posters linked sport to the army, and there were numerous recruiting drives at football matches. The next poem I will analyse is “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen. It details the horrors of World War One from the point of view of the soldiers, using violent imagery and phrases. The third stanza contains excellent examples of Owen’s use of imagery. The unknown speaker shouts, “Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!” placing the reader in the moment. The exclamation of the word “Gas!” and then the repetition of the same word are more descriptive of the situation than if the speaker had described deeply on the poison. The sudden change acts as the attack and the terror of the soldiers as they race to assemble the “clumsy helmets just in time;” The phrases “Quick, boys!” “Ecstasy of fumbling”, and “clumsy helmets” recalls the young age of the inexperienced soldiers, providing a bleak image with the battered landscape - “Dim through the misty panes and thick green light.” Throughout the poem, Owen crescendos in sound, colour, speed, and image. The third stanza begins with the burst of panic and attempt to save their own lives. “Just in time” progresses to “But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, like a man in fire or lime.” The crescendo is of one man representing the worst of the gas that the rest of the men escaped, and caught in bright imagery of “fire or lime.” The dash at the end of the line pulls us to the next lines – “Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light. As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.” – sudden change of mood to duller descriptiveness, “misty” and “thick.” The lime dims to green and the man in fire becomes an object, instead of a living soul. These images allow the reader to experience not the precise details of the scene, as a bystander would witness, but the fear that serves Owen’s purpose to warn you of the ‘glories’ of war, marketed to their youthful audience. Owen describes a group of young soldiers leaving the front line trenches after a spell of duty there. Owen attacks those who express the ‘old lie’ that it is sweet and decorous to die for one’s country. Owens bitter anger is clearly conveyed through his vivid imagery and disparaging tone. Owen uses vivid imagery selecting textured, guttural diction to convey the traumatic events that he experiences. The soldier’s exhaustion is effectively conveyed and the metaphor “drunk with fatigue.” This conjures up the image of men staggering uncoordinatedly, exhausted and deprived of sleep. Their unkempt disheveled state heightens the readers understanding of the hardship they have endured. They are described as being “like old beggars under sacks.” The word “beggars” is effective as it implicates a sense of weakness and helplessness. The connotations associated with beggars are mirrored in the soldier’s dirty and torn uniforms, which are likened to “sacks.” The disheveled description is the opposite to the image of the smart young men marching off to war. The men’s movement is described as a “trudge” also enhancing their apparent state of exhaustion. Their slow laborious pace is echoed in the slow moving pace of poem. The movements are again opposite to that of the marching, smart uniformed perception of soldiers. The pace of the [OEM is slowed due to the large amounts of punctuation which is very effective. However in the second verse the ace quickens as the danger for the men increases. This effective change in speed reflects what is happening to the soles making the reader feel more involved. The monosyllabic commands of “Gas! GAS! Quick boys” is a mean so quickening the pace as the speakers voice becomes more panicked and urgent. The exclamation of Gas is effective due to the use of capitals and exclamation marks indicating the volume and urgency of the information ultimately making the command more emphatic. The literary device of repetition emphasizing and highlighting its significance. As the soldiers react to this danger there is an “ecstasy of fumbling” as they reach for their gas masks. They are “clumsy” as they cannot seem to react quickly enough in their soporific state.The opening stanza is characterized by language about 'fatigue': the soldiers 'marched asleep', they 'trudge', and 'limped on'. They are 'deaf', 'lame' and 'blind'; all rather pitiful language intended to reveal the reality of war and its effects.The speaker describes a vision in a dream of a gas victim 'guttering, choking, drowning'. The listed verbs are associated with a lack of air and death.The language used in the sections depicting the gas attack is strong, representing both the anguish of the victims of the gas attack as well as the effect on those haunted by what they have seen: 'watch the white eyes writhing in his face, / His hanging face'. The repetition of the word 'face' makes it clear which element disturbs the speaker most: the transformation in the face of the victim. The use of alliteration on the 'w' sound reflects the agonized twisting of the gas victim. There is not a clearly defined structure to the poem, although Owen does make use of rhyme, mostly on alternate line endings. The poem opens with a description of trench life and the conditions faced by the soldiers. Then comes the gas attack, and the poem offers a graphic description of the effects of such an attack.Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, till on the haunting flares2 we turned our backs and towards our distant rest3 began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots but limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots4 of tired, outstripped5 Five-Nines6 that dropped behind.Gas!7 Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets8 just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime9 . . . Dim, through the misty panes10 and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, 11 choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud12 Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest13 To children ardent14 for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.15 8 October 1917 - March, 19181 DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean, "It is sweet and right." The full saying ends the poem: Dulce ET decorum EST pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country 2 rockets which were sent up to burn with a brilliant glare to light up men and other targets in the area between the front lines (See illustration, page 118 of Out in the Dark.) 3 a camp away from the front line where exhausted soldiers might rest for a few days, or longer 4 the noise made by the shells rushing through the air 5 outpaced, the soldiers have struggled beyond the reach of these shells which are now falling behind them as they struggle away from the scene of battle 6 Five-Nines - 5.9 calibre explosive shells 7 poison gas. From the symptoms it would appear to be chlorine or phosgene gas. The filling of the lungs with fluid had the same effects as when a person