How World War One presented in poetry by Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon Essay Example for Free

How cosmos fightf atomic number 18 One donationed in poem by Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon EssayA comparison of the ways in which terra firma warf ar One is presented by Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon in their poetry with close reference to Dulce et Decorum est and hymn for Doomed young by Owen and The ecumenical and plinth Details by Sassoon.* * *The First cosmos War motley fooled a significant turning point in poetic tradition and history by the revolutionary modalitys and ideas expressed by the poets. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon be probably devil of the most well knget state of war poets and their poetry was instrumental in this change. Prior to 1914, much poetry was written about wars such(prenominal) as the Crimean War in 1854-56 (The Charge of The Light Brigade by Tennyson who says, Honour the Light Brigade, Noble sextet hundred.) entirely the great majority of the poets had not experienced war first-hand. Thus, they reinforced the poetic tradi tion of glorifying war and death. Both Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, who both fought through most of the First World War, subprogram their poetry in the appreh check that they can give a more(prenominal) than realistic motion-picture show of war than the pre-twentieth century poetry.Both Owen and Sassoon present World War One as unheroic, in direct contrast to pre-twentieth war poetry such as The Destruction of Sennacherib by Byron. At the really beginning of Dulce et Decorum est Owen describes the soldiers as Bent double, want old beggars under sacks. That image is the complete opposite of what we would consider to be a heroic and ro manhoodticistic figure, an attribute that was always given to soldiers in pre-twentieth century poetry. Owen goes on to describe the soldiers as knock-kneed and cough up like hags. Neither of these images can be beaud with the glorified, smartly dressed soldier that would be fixed in almost all of the minds of women and children back ho me. The comparison of the soldiers to hags is not a pleasant one as hags be often scruffy and dirty. The mention of the coughing portrays the many illnesses that soldiers suffered from in the trenches.Although both of them present war as unheroic, they do so in very different ways. The style of Owens poetry which is much longer and contains more description than that of Sassoons, allows him to expand on the simple description of the horrors of war that he experienced. In Dulce et Decorum est, he describes in graphic and horrific detail the death of a man who was not able to pop get through his helmet in time during a gas attack. He uses words such as floundring guttering, choking, drowning. The word floundring gives the impression of the helplessness of the man.The onomatopoeic effect of these words gives an image that adds relaism to the horror of war. This makes it more realistic and moreover, more deject to read. Owen goes on, in the final stanza of this numbers to describe the dead man in greater detail. His varied use of language allows him to create shocking imagery which means that the reader can visualise the man. Owen uses phrases such aswatch the white eyes writhing in his faceandthe blood/Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungsThe first of these phrases is in particular chilling as it makes the reader deal of snakes writhing in his face. This gives the impression of a crazed person, impelled insane by what he has confabulaten and what he had suffered before dying. The alliteration of the w is alike effective as it emphasises the phrase. Owen wants to present the reality of the First World War and in slowing the reader down, he makes them think about what he is actually describing and change the way in which it was brushed over before World War One.The second phrase is in addition shocking and the use of the onomatopoeic word gargling makes it all the more visual and makes the reader feel more chilling. This image of a man choking on his own blood because of gas is very unheroic and it is this that Owen wants to portray the unheroic personality of war however brave the soldiers may be. This is in comparison to many pre-twentieth century war poems where they emphasise the heroic nature of war such as in a speech in Henry V where Henry says that the man who survives the battle will remember with advantages what feats he did that day, emphasising the heroic nature of war.Owens second poem, Anthem for Doomed Youth also presents World War One as unheroic and unromantic. The very first argument of his poem epitomises Owens feeling about the childlike men sent off to war.What passing bells for those who die as oxen?The use of the word cattle immediately robs all glory from the idea of war as a whole. The simile compares how cattle are slaughtered for meat to soldiers dying for their solid ground. This is a very unheroic comparison and is effective in what it is trying to portray.On the otherwise hand, in the two poems by Sassoon that I have chosen to discuss, Sassoon does not present World War One as unheroic. His poems, which are short and concise, deal more with the unfairness of war and protest against the generals and unconditional officers. However, in The General, Sassoon briefly presents the soldiers in an unheroic way, telling us that harass and Jack slogged up to Arras, instead of the quick, effective marching of the soldiers that had been frequently portrayed prior to the First World War such as is draw in The Charge Of The Light Brigade where Tennyson conveys the riders riding quckly by the phrase, Half a league, half a league, half a league onward. The rhythm of these problems show the quick pace of the soldiers.Sassoons poetry presents the unfairness and dissimilarity between the front-line privates and the generals who sat in comfort behind lines. Sassoon attacks the establishment of the country and the tone of his two poems is very sardonic, making fun of the generals i n quite a light-hearted way but with a pointed marrow to his poetry. In The General Sassoon presents The General as incompetent and responsible for the deaths many men.Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of em dead,And were cursing his staff for incompetent swine.The very last line of the poems refers to Harry and Jack who are named in the poem. This makes the generals attitude and incompetence more poignant and personal to the reader.But he did for them both by his plan of attack.This short last line is to the point and cuts right to the quick. Sassoon does not routine with words like Owen but presents World War One is his poetry in the most pithy way. The majority of his poems are no longer than three short stanzas whereas Owens can be eight verses long. However, Sassoons contentedness is just as worthy as Owens is.Base Details is probably Sassoons best poem for contend the generals as using harsh humour it describes them sitting in luxury hotels mend men are starving on the front-line with rationed food. He presents the generals of the First World War as scarlet and fat. Although the poem is short, he describes the generals so effectively that we have an image of the generals in our head which does not con level to what we aptitude expect, or certainly not what was generally thought of generals before the war. The title of the poem can be read on different levels the first being the simple meaning of the word as in headquarters, or on another level, the meanings of in short or unworthy. This emphasises their unworthiness of the elevated positions that they hold. Sassoons first line seems to sum up all that he is trying to sayIf I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,This one line immediately gives us a humorous image of a general which is almost like those we see in cartoons today of blustering, half drunk generals sitting in offices wheezing with a pipe in hand. In Base Details Sassoon continues his theme of their unworthiness by describin g the generals table manners which according to him, are disgusting. He presents them as guzzling and gulping. These onomatopoeic words give the effect of pigs eating at a trough, especially guzzling. It also conveys them stuffing their faces when the soldiers on the front-line are risking their lives day after day with little to eat. We associate these words with animal behaviour and this is indeed what Sassoon is trying to present.He also presents the generals as nave and frivolous, expending the war in the best hotels and when their presence was required after a battle they brushed off the importance of war calling it a scrap. Sassoons bitterness is also displayed when the general says I used to fill in his father well. This emphasises his bitterness effectively towards the upper classes and old boy network, angry that whether you survive the war depends on class and connections. This bitterness is integral to many of his poems and is also evident, in a less direct way, in The General.Both Owen and Sassoon present the loss of youth in their poems. In Dulce et Decorum est, Owen is bitter towards those who tell children a word which emphasises their youth the old Lie Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori or in English, It is sweet and worthy to die for ones country. The use of the Latin here emphasises the traditional nature of war and the patriotism that the Latin evokes in men.The idea of the loss of youth is more evident in Owens second poem, Anthem For Doomed Youth, where the very title shows all that Owen thinks about sending boys off to war. He himself was only twenty-two when he conjugate the army and thus would have known about how terrible it was. The words of the title, Anthem For Doomed Youth has the theme of a funeral and says how not only youth itself is doomed but youth as an idea. Owen also mentions, in the second stanza, the words boys and girls which stresses once again the youth of the soldiers and perhaps of their nurses or their girlf riends.Only Base Details mentions the loss of youth in Sassoons poems saying near the end that youth is stone dead. taken out of the context of the poem, this phrase is disturbing the loss of a whole generation of men and also the loss of innocence of those who survived. In context, the phrase becomes even more disturbing, that more of the fat, drunk generals of sixty, have survived the war, while boys of seventeen have died. The whole line readsAnd when the war is done and youth stone deadThe routine nature of this line is shocking and represents how Sassoon pictures the generals view of the loss of millions of boys. A whole generation has been lost or affected so badly by the war and the majors would toddle safely home to draw back where they could die. The word toddle is very visual and humourously conveys the generals waddling back to England as they are so fat. It also shows their child-like nature and their frivolity. The bitterness that Sassoon feels is clearly evident in this poem. In contrast, The General mentions nothing of the idea of youth but concentrates more on the inept nature of The General. These poems are very different to the nature of those by Rupert Brooke, a young soldier who was killed at the beginning of the war and had experienced little fighting. The first stanza of his poem peacefulness he describes how wonderful it is that he is alive at this time and he can fight for his countryNow God be thanked Who has matched us with his hourHe also describes going to war as swimmers into cleanness leaping, very different to the dirty and horrific conditions that Owen describes.Owen and Sassoon differ very greatly in the structure of their poems Owen tends to pull through longer, more detailed poetry whereas Sassoon writes short and succinct poems. Anthem for Doomed Youth is a praise which is traditional style of poetry but the themes that Owen deals with are very modern, contrasting with the style that he has chosen to use. However, th e rhyme scheme of a sonnet does not always remain true to its traditional form such as in the last stanza of Anthem for Doomed Youth where it is e.f.f.e.g.g. The rhyme scheme of Sassoons poetry is very simple and direct, which reflects the nature of his poems. He generally uses alternate rhyme, except the last lines where he uses a rhyming couplet such as in Base Details dead and bed. In The General the last three lines have the same rhyme Jack, pack and attack. The rhyming couplet gives emphasis to the end of the poem.Sassoons poetry is short, pithy and succinct, conveying one or several points in maybe two or three short stanzas such as The General, which is only seven lines long compared to Owens poetry which is usually longer. The style of Sassoon is more colloquial, using soldiers slang such as Hes a cheery old card, grunted Harry to Jack. and tends to be more vitriolic such as And speed glum heroes up the line to death. Conversely, Owen uses descriptive and distend words tha t convey the atmosphere and images that the poems evoke, such as his unforgettable and shocking description of the dead man in the third stanza of Dulce et Decorum est.Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon present different aspects of World War One Owen, the conditions and horrific deaths of the characterless soldiers in contrast to Sassoons pointed and bitter attack against the majors. They do this in very different ways and condescension Sassoons influence on Owen, their styles are extremely contrasting but no less effective. Their poetry helped mark a radical change in the way war poetry was written and it is their presentation of their themes that naturalized this shift.