Comparing two poems Essay

In this essay I will be comparing two poems. These poems are on the topic of war which is very relevant especially as there is a war going on in Iraq as I am writing this. The first poem I am going to write about called: â€Å"Dulce et Decorum est† is written by Wilfred Owen. He had first hand experience of war as he was a soldier; so he will give us a very honest opinion of war and what it was really like to fight in one. Unfortunately for him he was killed in action a week before the war ended. The poem has a very strong anti-war feeling about it; it is his personal view that dying for your country is not a very good thing and in the poem he conveys this to us by giving us very clear mental pictures of the horrible effects of war. Wilfred Owens’s attitude to war is that he is frustrated, angry and resentful of it. The poem type Wilfred uses in this poem is the Sonnet; this is odd because Sonnet poems are usually about love but in this case he is writing about hurt; rhythm of the octaves in this poem is slow and speeds up in the sestet. These ties in with the mood of the poem e.g.: â€Å"Gas! Gas! Gas! † This line has been broken up with exclamation marks to show that there is an emergency. Then it slows down quite considerably again in the final stanza to make us think of the suffering the soldiers go through. It is wonderful the way that he structures this poem from the soldiers’ feelings, to his own and then he asks the reader for their views. There is one very noticeable thing about the structure and that is that there are two lines of the poem on their own; also these line are not in the past tense like the rest of the poem and this is because he is trying to emphasize the mental scars of war which remain with him in the present. He gives us a very detailed mental picture and he gives us this in all three verses. In verse 1 he talks about the physical breakdown of the soldiers. He builds up this mental image of suffering e.g.: â€Å"knocked kneed†, and he continues this mental picture into versus 2 as he talks about his fellow solider suffering and dying in the gas as he can’t get his helmet on. He uses verbs in this verse in a clever way e.g.: Fumbling and floundering. E.g.: â€Å"†¦Fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time.† â€Å"And floundering like a man in fire or lime.† In verse 3 he uses Onomatopoeic e.g.: gargling. He uses this word to explain how his fellow solider died e.g. â€Å"†¦Gargling from the forth-corrupted lungs.† The pain that this soldier suffered is conveyed to us in a very gruesome way e.g.: â€Å"As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.† What he means by that is he has breathed in so much gas its suffocating him so it is ver y like drowning. Another example â€Å"He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.† In the first verse he uses metaphors in a very powerful way e.g. â€Å"Blood shod†, â€Å"drunk with fatigue† to show the exhaustion and suffering of the soldiers. Also the Onomatopoeic words in the first verse â€Å"sludge† and â€Å"trudge†, show us how the soldiers slowly marched ; it tell us also that they had no determination and enthusiasm lift to fight for their country. Wilfred Owen is basically saying in this poem that he’s been there and it’s not that good at all to fight for your country. This is the complete opposite of what Lord Tennyson talks about in â€Å"The Charge of the Light Brigade†. Lord Tennyson’s poem is different from Wilfred Owen in a number of ways. Firstly Lord Tennyson has never fought in a war; Tennyson poem is also saying that it is good to die for your country and Tennyson’s poem is about the soldiers being heroes and noble men. The poet’s attitude to war is that it is an honorable and noble thing to die for your country. The tone of this poem is fast and very sharp e.g.: â€Å"Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns! † Another example is â€Å"Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them† stays at this speed for most of the poem. Tennyson structures his poem in to 6 verses of even length. He starts off describing the advance in verse 1 and 2 e.g.: â€Å"Into the valley of death† â€Å"Forward, the Light Brigade!† then into verse 4 he talks about the heat of the battle e.g.: â€Å"Flashed all their sabers bare, Flashed as they turned in air, Sabring the gunners there.† In verses 5 and 6 he talks about the retreat e.g.: â€Å"Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them† and he then goes on to say how courageous, noble and heroic the soldiers were e.g.: â€Å"honour the charge they made! Honour the light brigade, Noble six hundred†. Verse 6 is shorter than the rest as it is a tribute to the soldiers that fought in the war. The rhythm of the poem is regular; it conveys how inevitable the charge was. The rhyme sounds very grand, patriotic and has a musical tone about it. The poem type is a ballad. A ballad is usually a short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and usually a refrain. They contain repetition e.g.: â€Å"Rode the six hundred† (which is on the end of every verse) another example: â€Å"Half league, half league, half league onward†. They are written in straight-forward verse, seldom with detail, but always with graphic simplicity and force. Many old-time ballads were written and performed by minstrels attached to noblemen’s courts. Language used in the poem is very powerful to glorify the charge rather than show pity. He uses metaphors in his poem e.g.: â€Å"Into the valley of death†; there is also personification used in his poem e.g.: â€Å"Into the jaws of death† and â€Å"Into the mouth of hell† He uses these metaphors and personification in his poem to emphasize the suicidal march of the Light Brigade. The hell and death in these phrases reinforces the views of this being the end for the soldiers. I really liked the way that Tennyson brings the reader into his poem by asking a rhetorical question: â€Å"Was there a man dismayed?† and â€Å"When can their glory fade?† He does use a quite a lot of onomatopoeia e.g.: â€Å"Volleyed and thundered† and â€Å"†¦Shot and shell†. He has also chosen his verbs in his poem really well. They are Very prominent; convey idea of speed, the light and movement all in the one verb is â€Å"flashed†. The repetition is very powerful and significant in the poem from the very first line: â€Å"Half a league, Half a League, Half a league onward.† My personal view on war is that it is a terrible thing and should only be used for a last resort. I would only agree with a war at present if there was evidence to prove that Iraq have weapons of mass destruction and then I would consider it a just war and that we must get Saddam quickly and carefully to keep down the risk of innocent deaths. I personally prefer â€Å"Dulce et Decorum est.† by Wilfred Owen as it is more detailed and gives you very vivid pictures of the soldiers deaths and as Wilfred Owen was believable actually there it’s more in a sense as he was has seen it up close. This poem taught me that war is a bad thing and it’s not worth it; it helped me to appreciate how much pain some of the soldiers had to suffer in the war.