Different attitudes to war Essay

Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen atomic number 18 poets who fought for England in the First World War. Both poets depict the comparable topic of struggle, entirely through diametrical views and opinions. Despite them pertaining to the similarly themed subject, their language and t unmatchable lift contrasting feelings in reviewers and affects their impression of fight in opposite ways. Examples of these differences rear be seen in the two rimes by Rupert Brook The all in(p)(a) (iii) and The spend and two by Wilfred Owen Anthem for Doomed early days and Dulce et decorum Est.Rupert Brooke writes The Dead (iii) in an extremely relaxed and romantic mood. Brooke had not ingestd war, so with this in mind the poem come alongs genuinely(prenominal) clear and concise. Brooke aims to show us the halo that is brought about by dying for your agricultural. He thinks that war is a naive and dignified cause. He aims to make us much patriotic and bring over us to excrete for our kingdom in war.The first line is very energetic and joyous for a horrendous subject such as war. This whitethorn incriminate that Brooke tries to symbolise enthusiasm and glory. Since bugles be use at a grand occasion, but in addition militarily charges and retreats he may be trying to indicate that dying for your awkward is a superb way to end your life history.Blow out, you bugles, over the rich DeadAs he says, it has make them rich. This probably means that they are cockeyed with glory, praise and admiration. He makes no mention of the pain and suffering in war. The third line explains that dying has again made them important.But, dying has made us rarer gifts than gold.Gold is very rare, so by dying they cod been them valuable and unique. Brooke is trying to signify that not numerous people fall in their lives this way. This in Brookes belief is a very detectable and glorious practice. The sestet explains to us how the soldiers dying bring England a lot of hon our and credibility.Honour has come rearward, as a king, to humans,And paid his subjects with a royal stag wageThe pacification that has been play for so long has made her weak. heritage is use to clearly link with the overall theme of payment and reward. It implies that which is rightfully theirs, has been successfully implemented.And we present come into our heritage.In The Soldier, Brooke feels surfeit to die for his motherland to protect the people left crumb. The title conveys a sense of pride and loyalty to the referee. Although fully aware of the possibility of death, indicated by the lineIf I should die, think however this of meEven if his ashes, his richer earth, were to lie in a land distant from England, his love would dumb be forever. This is further stressed when his relationship is compared to the bond amid mother and child.A disperse whom England bore, shaped, made aware,His decide of fighting for his land is to protect England, indicated by the words,G ave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,His sense of pride and honour is so strong that he does not dwell on the gloom and reverse that is associated with war, instead views it as if through rose-tinted glasses. Even if his contributions were minute, shown by the comparison of,A pulse in the eternal mindGive just aboutwhere back the thoughts England given,He is happy to repay England and wishes to preserve her laughter and lenience for the future. This contentment and happiness is clearly shown by the words peace and heaven, plain if he is dead, he force out rest in peace as he has loyally served his country. This patriotism is frequently brought to attention with the repeat use of the word England and side of meat throughout the poem.The Soldier gives out an cheerful tone, making war out to be a peaceful and opulent act. It is written in the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, which is impostally used to enunciate personal thoughts and feelings. This could reserve be en the reason why Rupert Brooke chose to write in this form. It is to a fault an autobiographical poem in which the author expresses a personal stall on war and his love for his country. Rupert Brooke in addition makes use of iambic pentameters, which is a line containing five stresses. It gives his written words authority by apply this classical verse. It also provides a rhythm, which reminds the reader of a heartbeat or a pulse.This helps in making his argument more than than convincing. The stanzas are separated into two. The octave talks about the possibility of death fleck the sestet talks about death itself and what his sacrifice will mean for England. It gives the traditional, naive and biased view of war. It also gives a pastoral interpretation yet a biased view of England as he blatantly ignores the negative side of England just now mentioning its best side. He uses a spiritual diction, for example the last line reads,In hearts at peace, low an side of meat heav en. This reveals Brookes belief in God and Heaven. This is what makes the poem sound somewhat like a sermon. Rupert Brooke expresses patriotism and his conviction that England is expense fighting for as he also claims that God is on Englands side by saying blest by the suns of home. By believing inthis, Rupert Brooke makes himself believe that he should sacrifice his own life for England and by doing so he would be returning the favour of universe born British and so believes it is an honour to go to war, and an even great honour to die in battle for ones country and in return, portrays in his poem an image of one dying a painless death.Such a view is in the Victorian tradition of war which viewed it as a glorious and noble enterprise, with such poems as Tennysons Charge of the Light Brigade. This patriotic fever was apparently carried on by Brooke who still saw warfare in term of duels and honour. By looking at these sonnets, we can come to the obvious terminal that Brooke wa s very idealistic about war and had no idea of the aversion and suffering involved.However Wilfred Owens Anthem for Doomed Youth achieves a totally different effect on the reader, as it is humply destitute of any obvious sense of national pride, and instead questions the very purpose of war. His use of ironies throughout produces a mocking tone, which serves to emphasize his view of the unusefulness of war. This is revealed in the title, where the effect of the word Doomed adverts that the soldiers are destined to die and are without any go for. However, it is dry that it is used with the word Anthem, a word reserved for praise.What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? The soldiers are compared to cattle that are slaughtered, indicating that they have no other purpose than to die. The comparison also provokes that the soldiers were killed numerously, mercilessly and systematically. He uses crude words to convey the complete absence seizure of love or honour on the bat tlefield and numerous contradictions to importune the feelings of pity in the reader instead of passing-bells there are only guns and stuttering rifles. The words fantastic anger refers to the fierceness and violence of war.Only the monstrous anger of the guns.Only the stuttering rifles quick rattleThe word monstrous also suggests that the soldiers task is immense, al nigh impossible to do, which emphasizes the feeling of discouragement of war. This is again cotton uped when the poet refers to the gunshots as stuttering. This means that there are bullets whizzing everywhere, and chances are most of the men would have been hit. The alliteration of the Rs in rifles rapid rattle indicate the sounds of gunshots again appealing to the readers senses to highlight the bleak conditions in the battlefield which are terrible and ugly.Owen is obsessed with the cruelty, indignity and unavailing wasting of their lives. The use of the word patter refers to the bullets hitting a soldiers bod y. It gives the effect of raindrops hitting a window, which when used to describe how a body is inflicted with bullets paints a very cruel and inhumane picture. When he writes,No mockeries now for them no prayers nor bellsHe says that the dead are forgotten they are neither mourned nor prayed for. This is because the dead are so more that it would take too a good deal effort to bother to tend to them. The only things to mark their deaths are the choirs, yet there are not ordinary choirs but,The shrill, demented choirs of squall shells.It is as if death has become the norm for them it does not receive much attention or sympathy. The words shrill and wailing seem to suggest that even in their deathbeds, there is no peace. The bugles calling for them from sad shires seem to be calling in vain, because the soldiers are all dead. If anything, the soldiers deaths are undignified and not the least bit honourable. There is no hero worship and the dead are ignored. There is no pride, no h onour and still the war continues. Owen writes about the effects of so many casualties of war and how it ironically destroys the homes the soldiers died to protect. The numerous deaths caused by warravages even the untested generations left behind, shown by the candles,What candles may be held to speed them all? non in the hands of boys, but in their eyesShall shine the sanctum glimmers of goodbyes. This refers to their tears and the pallor of girls brows which is the paleness of the girls. It is all they have to mourn the dead soldiers, and they are infestationd with sadness at the death of a loved-one. The line,And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blindsshows that they are slowly losing apprehend against the darkness, which signifies their sorrow and misery. He says that the youth are supposed to be the hope for the future but are doomed because of the past, which is ironic because so many soldiers wasted their lives hoping to protect these children. The calmness achieved by t he consistency only serves to suggest the mood is heartless, without emotion, cold, cruel, and that like of a machine. In Anthem for Doomed Youth, the rhythm is broken and unsteady it serves to create an impression on the reader of how grave and miserable war is.In Dulce et Decorum Est, the tone is more sombre and angry making out the same war is spicy and insufferable. The Latin words used in the title of the poem Dulce et Decorum Est mean, it is a unfermented and fitting thing to die for ones country. This is ironic as throughout the poem, Wilfred Owen gives the reader a negative picture of war and towards the end of the poem, calls his title the old lie. This is because at the start of the war the Latin phrase had become a motto which was used in supporting patriotic statements about war and to encourage other young men to become soldiers. But Owen himself had been at the front lines for three age and so by now knew what war really meant and so he uses his metrical compositio n as a means to express the views of soldiers to people who had no experience of it namely the public.Wilfred Owen begins his poem with the soldiers description,Bent double, like old beggars chthonic sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags,This is strange coming from a soldier himself and now opposes the stereotypical soldier. Throughout, his choice of words describing the soldiers, his experience and war itself, Wilfred Owen puts the reader into a state of shock and disillusion. He uses the analogy of war as being like a plague or a lethal ailment that is highly contagious and can cause mass destruction, in modulate to emphasise the harsh reality. This is shown when he writes, like a man in fire or lime as in the days of plague where lime was used as a substance to decompose dead bodies, and in saying this, he says that those who enter war, those who actually participate and experience war at its worst, for them there is no return to normality, or thusly humanity.He writes abou t a soldier who had died of poisonous gas brainchild and describes it vividly, trying to make the reader imagine the scenes before him using the present progressive verb form ending with -ing. For example,He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. This gives the sense of immediacy, that the reader is actually witnessing the soldiers death. This soldier died by breathing in poisonous gas. Then Owen describes how the mans dead body was treated, bottomland the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,His respite face, like a poses sick of sin, This shows the pain he was in, as he was on the brink of death. This is toillustrate that as the nark is destined to commit evil until the end of time, it has come to the extent that even the devil is sick of the amount of evil and torture around it. The sacred diction used here symbolizes the relationship between war and the devil and that they too, are playing on the same grounds as the devil. A direct address to the readers is also used, using a persuasive technique, particularly in the last stanza, for example,If you could hear in line 21,My friend, you would not give out in line 25,This is so that the reader would feel sympathetic towards him and the soldiers. It is close as if Owen is begging the reader to understand. Through describing this mans tragic death and his burial, Wilfred Owen tries to change the views of the public. The use of fricatives symbolizes the harsh reality of war as by using fricatives, for example a hard c is used in words such as corrupted and cud, it becomes as though the reader can actually hear the person dying as it sounds like choking and so writes in a very vivid form.In the last few sentences he makes his final centre clear,My friend, you would not sort with such high zestTo children ardent for some desperate glory,The old lie Dulce et Decorum EstPro Patria Mori.Again he makes a personal plea to the reader telling them not to tell children t hat war is a patriotic act and the only answer to the demesnes problems. It is in fact the worst possible answer, there can never be honour as a result of war and there are only dire consequences.Brookes love for England is shown throughout his work. As in Dulce et Decorum Est repetition and alliteration used. The words England and English are repeated many times to show his love for his country and alliteration such as, Her sights and sounds magnify the beauty of England. It is also used to conceal the horrors of death on a battlefield as it states, That theres some corner of a foreign field. He also believes that heaven will look similar to England by stating under an English heaven and therefore also believes in the superiority of the English, a richer dust concealed. Owen, on the other hand, witnessed twentieth century war in all its cruel destructiveness and as a consequence brought war poetry into the modern era. Although both poets write about the same topic, which is war, they both have different views and attitudes towards it.Perhaps this is because of their different experiences with war. Brooke is like a new soldier, nave and yet to experience its horrors. Owen writes as if he has just witnessed the worst, as he was involved with the uglier and bloodier part of the war. He also reveals the effects both on and off the battlefield. Both authors have distinctly different impressions of war because of their different experiences, but ultimately, both describe the subject, although from totally opposite sides. The two poets really contrast and oppose each other greatly. Brooke writes about war idealistically and with passion, Whereas Owen does the complete opposite. Owenss poem is however more reliable since he has see war.The Dead was written before the war. The Soldier was written in 1914, a year before Brooke died, and Owen wrote Dulce et Decorum Est in 1917, three historic period after the First World War had started. In these dates we may find t he reasons behind the conflicting ideology the two men gained. Brook wrote his poem at the beginning of the war, and so the ideas and perceptions of war and fighting for ones country as being noble and heroic were still fresh in his mind and the publics.Owen, on the other hand, wrote his poem three years into the war and in that time was able to see and accept the realities of war, so his perception of war was changed to bitterness and this was reflected in his many poems such as Anthem for Doomed Youth in which he reveals the same feelings on war as he does in Dulce et Decorum Est. In one of his previous poems, The Ballad of Peace and War, he himself had supportedthe idea of,How sweet it is to live in peace with others, but sweeter still far more meet to die in war with brothers. Therefore, it would be concluded that the only reason why the two poets have conflicting ideologies of war, is time. If Brooke had experienced more of the war he might have wrote later poems that portrayed the same bitterness as Owens.