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 and how they were forced to march on with very little rest. Owen also uses some techniques in his poem to get his point across. One of these is when he uses the metaphor “Drunk with fatigue” This paints an image in the reader’s mind of a soldier that is so tired that it is as if he is drunk. He also uses some personification on the last line of the first stanza when he says “disappointed shells that dropped behind”. In this line he is giving the shells the human characteristic of being disappointed.
This is because they are not killing people which are what they were made to do. Both poems have some similarities and some differences. One of the ways they are similar is that they are both about death. But they both show it in different ways. In the dead by Rupert Brooke It says how lucky the soldiers are to have the chance to die for their country. But in Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen it says how bad the war is and how nobody should have to go through the pain of war.
The main point of Rupert Brookes poem is to try and get people into war but telling them that it is very honourable to fight for your country.But the main point in Owens poem is to tell people how bad the war is by telling the truth and by saying it like an account of what happened, for example when he says “Gas! Gas! Quick boys! ” In conclusion, In this essay I have looked at both of the poems in more detail and shown the similarities and differences between them. The poem that I think is the most effective is Wilfred Owens Dulce Et Decorum Est. I think this because his poem is very descriptive. For example when he say “Under a green see I saw him drowning” and “gargling from the froth corrupted lungs”.
