A Critical Analysis of Three World War one PoemsEssay Preview: A Critical Analysis of Three World War one PoemsReport this essayA Critical Analysis Of Three World War One Poems.The Soldier Rupert BrookeThe General Siegfried SassoonDulce Et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen.Sassoon and Owen where treated at the same mental hospital during world war one. Do their poems appear to be the work of madmen?Rupert Brookes poem The Soldier was written at the start of World War One, this was before the horror of the trenches was known. The poem is a traditional sonnet in which Brooke expresses his love for England and how he believes it is right to fight and die for his country. However Brooke never discovered what war was like in reality as he died in 1915, before he actually got to fight in the war. Therefore his poem is very idealistic and has a very traditional viewpoint.
Brookes poem is written in iambic pentameter and has alternate line rhyme he also uses metaphors and euphemism.Brookes poem would inspire young men to enlist and would bring comfort to the families of the victims of war. In his poem Brooke uses repetition of the word England in a very patriotic style. He also uses personification to describe England as if it were a person, for example, her sights and sounds, dreams happy as her day. Sassoons poem The General and Owens poem Dulce Et Decorum Est. could be considered as deliberate responses to Brookes The Soldier.
The General points out the contrast between the soldiers who die and the Generals who send them to their deaths. He says in his last line But he did for them both by his plan of attack which shows how the Generals killed their soldiers by sending them of to their deaths. This is a good end for the poem as it leaves the reader thinking about the incompetence of the general. In this poem Sassoon uses irony to criticise the folly of war. Sassoons poem is written in iambic hexameter and has alternate line rhyme except for the last three lines, which are rhyming triplets.
Sassoons poem shows that he is an intelligent man and knew how to use his wit.Sassoons poem The General is a very effective poem even though it is only short and has no graphic description. It also gets its message across to the reader strongly.
Wilfred Owens poem Dulce Et Decorum Est could also be considered as a response to Rupert Brookes The Soldier. The readers of Owens poem, looking at the title would expect to read something similar to Brookes poem, something that would bring them comfort and pride. The traditional image of soldiers engendered in such songs as The British Grenadier was of heroic patriots, Wilfred Owen destroys this traditional image, right from the start of his poem and the reader discovers what war was like in reality.
The poem begins by describing the soldiers but instead as describing them as tall noble and handsome, he describes them as like old beggars under sacks and Knock-kneed, coughing like hags. Owen included this description because it gives the reader an idea of how they were living in reality, as their accommodation was in dugouts, which were holes made in the sides of the trenches and covered in tarpaulin sheets. These poor living conditions gave rise to health problems apart from wounds caused by gunfire and gas. Owen describes the soldiers in a way that helps the reader visualise the appalling living conditions. The very first line of the poem would shock readers who had no idea of what war was like for the soldiers in the trenches. Owens poem is very realistic and is not idealistic, like Rupert Brooks poem The Soldier. In his poem Owen is trying to convey to people who have no idea of what life in the trenches is really like, the hellishness of the conditions
Songs:
I was never a soldier, always a boy, never to be proud
I never felt the pain to say, I’m going on in the trenches
In that awful world, where the soldier can be out there with his eyes shut,
Like the little baby in the ditch.
There I was, I was a soldier
And I’m sorry my friends don’t know,
They want all your stories, and so they tell,
The soldier is out there and all your problems are covered up
Beware, your eyes aren’t on the world,
Then when you see me with you your eyes turn
And what you think the soldier will say,
You are telling the truth, your life is not up the mountain,
That all the soldiers are being a boy, and never to be proud
We’ll get a man, I’ll get a soldier
So I’ll get a man
“We’ll get a soldier”
(Owens poem, April 1848) [Colo. William Henry Henry, Poems] [Owens poem, 1795. p. 628]