Saturday, March 9, 2019

With Reference to six poems, explain how attitudes to war changed over the course of World War One

World state of warfare One, or as most historians mean to it The Great War, was supposed to be the war to end wholly wars. From 1914 to 1918, sm altogether work force were encouraged to sign up to fleck for the British array against the might of the Germans. Because conscription wasnt introduced until 1916, recruitment songs, posters and poetry were needed to encourage men to sign up. These songs and verse forms were speci in e actuallyy written apply a wide mix of rhetorical devices so as to display the potential advantages that joining the regular army could bring.Most recruitment songs founder subtle similarities as they be all written for the same purpose to persuade. The master(prenominal) way they do this is by the use of rhetorical devices. In the song Whos for the spunky? the frontmost collar verses have rhetorical questions featuring heavily. For example, Wholl grip and tackle the job courageous and Wholl develop his demesne a hand? This likewise oc curs in issue forth In with the line, Will you send a strangled cheer to the sky / and grin till your cheeks are red? These boys are examples of rhetorical devices.They kick in you question yourself laterwards you have read it nearly-nigh whether or not you enlist. The cognomens of the two numberss also set the t angiotensin-converting enzyme of the different poems and blade the endorser aware of what they are about(predicate) to read. Making sure that the title displays this is important, because you then know what some(prenominal) of what is about to happen forrader you have flush started the first of all word. Whos for the endorse shows war as a fun, exciting opinion that men, if they signed up, would enjoy. Whereas Fall In, the other recruitment poem, has a military connotation.Fall in is a marching term that is employ a atomic reactor in the army, so before you have read a word of the actual poem, you know that the rest of the poem is issue to have a mil itary background, perhaps talking about how war is exchangeable from the militarys tip of view The twist of the poems are very similar, as they both have the same rhyming pattern with alternate lines rhyming played and unafraid as well as fright and tight This makes the poems catchy and on that pointfrom easier to remember.This will then cause the poem to stick in peoples tops, always persuading them to join the army. In the poem Fall In, the author relates individualally to you with the lines Is it football still and the picture show / the pub and the betting odds These are all things that the people who the poems were read by would have done in their everyday life. This is mirrored in Whos for the game? where they mention the red crashing game of a beseech this compares war to a game a kindred football to make it more challenge to the readers of the poem.This targets the au burstnce through their word choice. Crashing, is a verificatory adjective which makes the rea der more evaluate of war. This also makes the poem voice more appealing and attractive to the reader. Also in Whos for the game? they relate to you by appealing to mens sense of bravery and valorousness in the lines Your countrified is up to her neck in a fight / and shes looking and calling for you There are a number of appealing factors about that line, the first being the pronoun Your this makes it sound as if you own the country and it would be a shame to let it go.Then they refer to the country as a female in the actors line, her neck This makes them think that they are strong and brave and also personifies war as a handsome woman that they need to go and rescue. This emphasises the point nonetheless further by saying that shes looking and calling for you. The make unnecessaryr has made it sound like theyre talking about every single male that hasnt signed up yet. In the next section I will look at a different viewpoint of the same experience of war, from soldier poe ts.These poets fought in the trenches and wrote poems about what their experiences were like. The author of Peace, Rupert Brooke, was a neo-classical poet whose poems glorified war and made it sound like a glorious risk, however he never go through combat at first hand. He became famous because of his good looks. An Irish poet was quoted to have described him as the handsomest young man in England Arthur Graeme West, however, isnt as famous as him.This is probably because he was known to write poems fight young soldier-poets who were write poems idealising war like Rupert Brooke. His own personal grim experience was probably his motivation to write such a critical poem about the young poets. In Peace, the main aim of the poem is to explain to people about how capital the war is and how much of an adventure it would be when you sign up to join the army. Brooke has used the sonnet structure to his advantage.In the first eight lines, the octave, he is explaining about how war could arouse up their lives in the line, nd wakened us from sleeping, and then in the go grown six lines, the sestet, he brings the poem to a close reassuring the reader about finish, Naught broken save this body, lost but wind This talks about how when you die your body is the only thing that is broken, and nobody is lost a bureau from breath, It hints at the fact that the soul of a person will live on after death. This makes the reader more evaluate of death, because it says that after death you will live on. However, in GodHow I hate you, West has also used the end of the poem to beat plate his point. In the first five lines he talks about why he is writing the poem. The title itself is from when he is addressing the poets who are glorifying war. The title continues into you young cheerful men, the men being the poets. In the last part he goes into a much more particular version of war with strong adjectives like warm grey brain, and powerful similes like, smashed lik e an eggshell This is a good example as it likens a mans peak to an eggshell which is very easy to smash.The choice of simile here suggests that benignant life is fragile Imagery plays a huge part in both poems. Peace is showing war in a positive way like in the line we have found volcano there, this meaning that war has cleansed them from the boring Edwardian society that they lived in before the war. God How I Hate You, in contrast shows war in the opposite way, with the gruesome wording in the latter section. Spattered all bloody, is one of the strongest phrases in the poem and it is made all the more moving with the last two lines.These lines are almost mocking the young-soldier poets, saying that even though that the war is so ghastly, still Gods in His Heaven and all is right in the world. There are also hints at sarcasm, which is meant to make the soldier poets embarrassed about what theyve written. The last poems I am passing to look at are Dulce et decorum est and An them for Doomed Youth. Dulce et Decorum est is a war poem written by Wilfred Owen in collaboration with Siegfriend Sassoon. Wilfred Owen was seen as one of the most important war-poets in World War One.He wrote poetry in the trenches and kept a diary. He experienced shell shock after a shell burst in force(p) him in 1917 and was sent to a military hospital in Scotland called Craiglockhart where he met Siegfried Sassoon. Whilst there, his poetry changed and became more explicit and more didactic in content. The poem is very negative about war. They mention a lot of the set up that war can bring on you like, Drunk with fatigue, which meant that the war was so tiring they were acting as if they were drunk from the effects.Also, Deaf even to the hoots, heart that they were concentrating so hard on the war that they couldnt hear anything at all. The priming for all this negativity is that it was written in 1917, leash years after war had broken out so they had had time to see how b ad the war is and to construct a poem saying how startlingly extortionate it is. Owen does very well at portraying a gas attack, the main event in the poem. The first of these very emotive stanzas is vile, incurable sores. The first word, vile straightaway makes your repulsed and moved about the use of this foul language.another(prenominal) one is gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs. I think this is the worst and most dreadful of the three stanzas because corrupted makes you think of how ruined and destroyed this young soldiers lungs must be after inhaling the gas. The last one is watch the white eyes writing in his face. The strongest word in this stanza is definitely writihing. These poetic techniques are sincerely vivid because they make you really disgusted at what has happened to these poor soldiers during the war. alone these really horrible descriptions of war really hit home the ideas about the bogus patriots, like Jessie pope, whom the poem is addressed to. The re ason for addressing the poem to her is that she stayed at home yet encouraged men to join the army and to go and fight in the war. As well as her it is also addressed to all the soldier poets like Rupert Brooke who glamorised war. This gave the poem more fame than others because most people aphorism the reception from the other well-known poets that it was aimed at. As well as utilize a lot of descriptions to describe war he uses continuous verbs like uttering, choking, drowning. This gives you the sense of the war never ending with no hope of outlet out as after youve read one word youre immediately pounded on with another one. This gives the poem more depth than the actual manner of speaking written on the page. Also a lot of similes in the first paragraph including, Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, as well as coughing like hags. These also give you the idea that war is a really terrible place to be because things like hags and beggars arent very nice things to be likened to.The soldiers have also not become human being because of the war they have aged and become dehumanised. I think that set the title at the end of the poem rounds off the whole poem because you dont really read those last lines but it gives you time to digest the poem and focus on what you have actually read. In this poem, there is also use of sarcasm and an accusatory tone because of the people that the poet was directing it to Jessie Pope and other poets just like her. Anthem for Doomed Youth, was written by Wilfred Owen in collaboration with Siegfried Sassoon when they met in Craiglockhart, a military hospital in 1917.They wrote it together relying on each other to adjust bits slightly using both poets skills. The war was reaching its conclusion and poems were becoming more detailed as four years of war had given them lots to write about. Gruesome injuries, horrific detail and the soldiers own personal accounts affected how poets displayed their words to the reader. The grisly nature of the poem is displayed immediately in the first stanza with the description, What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? This likens deaths of soldiers to that of cattle.If someone dies like cattle it is not going to be a glorious death. The quote also states about how, after a soldiers death, no one will sound church bells in memoriam of them in the line, What passing-bells This makes the deaths sound unimportant and that nobody keepings if a soldier dies. sort of of bells, the only sounds they were likely to get were the monstrous anger of the guns and, the stuttering rifles rapid rale. This likens the characteristic funeral noises to that of war. There is also a use of alliteration with rifles rapid rattle It shows how brutal and quick the rifles could fire.They use personification in the choirs of wailing shells. rather of a choir of church boys singing the soldiers had the wail of an exploding shell. This creates a floor and surprised mood to the comparison of shells to choir boys. With the line, What candles may be held to rush along them all? It questions whether or not anyone cares about the amount of death that is happening. It says that boys wont care because they are the ones that possibly could go to war in the future. Girls will be the only ones feeling sorry for them and girls brows shall be their pall.Palls are the cloth used to cover coffins so it means that the girls will be the most caring people. Also at the end of the poem, to round the end off, they use a metaphor about death. And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds This likens death to the drawing-down of blinds, or in the soldiers context, their eyes closing. This makes the reader feel more accepting of death, it being likened to just drawing down of blinds something that some people do every evening, and there is a sense of finality over this gloomy and grave ending.In conclusion, my favourite poem was Anthem for Doomed Youth, because it had a very musical background, no prayers nor bells and save the choirs. The poem is a great poem, I think because two poets wrote it together. With two poets working on one poem, they can annotate each others work and make additions to it and change some parts to suit both there own. With all the references to music there is a lot to focus on, however if you can get your head around the poem it is a very emotive and meaningful poem.

No comments:

Post a Comment