Compare and contrast the styles and techniques of two of the Wilfred :: English Literature

Compare and contrast the styles and techniques of two of the Wilfred Owen poems you have studied to demonstrate the poet's attitude to war Wilfred Owen was a war poet from the First World War; he was born in 1893 and died in 1918, whilst fighting in the "Great War". He wrote his poetry while sitting as an injured soldier on a hospital bed, and many say this is where he developed his flair for writing. In this essay, I have decided to analyse two poems; "Dulce et Decorum est" and "Anthem for Doomed Youth". In my opinion both of these poems portray Owen's anger towards the war, but do so in very different ways. I am going to compare and contrast the two poems, so that I get a better idea of Owen's attitude to war. Themes are important to any poem because it is what they are about. The main theme in "Dulce et Decorum est" is that it is not a glorious thing to fight for one's country; it is actually a horrific and traumatising experience. This is ironic because the name of the poem translates to "It is a glorious and honorable thing to fight for one’s country". I think Owen has done this so that he can lead up to the last line where he is urging people back at home to cease telling their children the "old lie" and to me this is effective. Stanza three is writing about the tragedy of war; it says "Obscene as cancer", and I think this is a useful simile because it is something that people back at home, reading the poetry, could relate to. Another theme of this poem is death; there are many occasions in which Owen talks about death. I have chosen "guttering, choking, drowning" as an example because it portrays an image of a horrific and painful way of dying. Another example of death is â€Å"white eyes writhing in his face, his hanging face† this is effective to me because the use of repetition emphasises the state in which the soldier is in, and draws a vivid images in the readers mind. I think these themes show that Owen has a bitter attitude towards war because he seems to only mention a bad side of war as if there is no glorious part. The main theme in stanza one of "Anthem for Doomed Youth" however is the lack of a funeral for people dying in the war. An example of this is "choirs of wailing shells"; this means that the only choir they have when they die is the sound the shells make as they move through