A Comparison of Dulce Et Decorum Est and Exposure Essay example -- Wil

A Comparison of Dulce Et Decorum Est and Exposure Traditional war poetry gives the idea of patriotic idealism of war. This style of poetry implies that war is patriotic and that people who fight for their country are honorable. But many of the poets do not portray war as it really is, by glossing over the gory details with attractive images. Many traditional war poems were written before the war to persuade and encourage young boys to become loyal soldiers. Many of the soldiers were taught to believe that they were the chosen few and they were delighted to take part. They even thanked God, ‘Now, God be thanked, Who had matched us with His hour’. The capital ‘H’ on ‘His’ implies the importance; meaning that ‘His hour’ is God’s war. This makes the soldiers even more delighted and thankful. And the worst occurrence would be death. But as it says in ‘The Soldier’ by Rupert Brooke, death doesn’t last long and everybody shall die at one point, so why not die honorably for your country? Owen and many other ww1 poets were a contrast to traditional poems. They wrote about war realistically. They wrote from personal experience. They include horrific details of death and injury. They also criticized those who were running the war. Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 into a middle-class family. His family came under financial difficulties and his education was stunted. Nether the less his ability of poetry writing grew fuelled by his reading of romantics. In his twenties he went through life going from one badly paid job to another. During this time he had little spare time to concentrate on writing poetry. In August 1914 Wilfred Owen found himself with a stable job as a private tutor of a French family in the ... ...ir personal, first hand experiences of the war. Owen met Sassoon at Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh. The two men worked together to write ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, this partnership worked particularly well as both men had experiences of war and could express themselves in their poems. Although ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and ‘Exposure’ are different poems, they have their similarities. They are both written by a man who was awarded the Military Cross for bravery at Amiens, they both have the same theme (war and the effects, both short term and long term) and both are superbly written. Wilfred Owen experienced the terrors of war first hand and filtered his experiences into his work. That is why ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and ‘Exposure’ are such wonderful, emotive and interesting poems. Their writer had first hand experience of the horrors of warfare.