Choose three contrasting poems that you feel show the difference in the attitudes and experiences of those people who were part of World War One. Analyse them in relation to how they demonstrate the experiences and feelings towards war at the time.
The three poets that I am choosing to write about are, Wilfred Owen, Thomas Hardy, and Rupert Brooke. The reason that the three poems contrast is the tone and content of the poem. Rupert Brooke had idealistic views of the war; his poems were seen as moral support for the soldiers. Siegfried Sassoon's poems showed the realistic view of the war, the brutal truth. Thomas Hardy is more unique than the other two writers he wrote about idealistic views, but he never actually went to war, he never had the first hand knowledge that the other two poets had, his poetry was speculation and imagination.
In my essay I will analyse a poem from each poet and try to demonstrate the feelings, emotions and experiences towards war.
English: Portrait of Wilfred Owen, found in a coll...
God the Father 01
English: Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (1886-1967), po...Siegfried Sassoon's 'Suicide in the Trenches' is written realistically in its views of the war. Sassoon had been born into English aristocracy and privilege and was educated in England's finest universities. When WWI broke out, Sassoon enlisted in the army and distinguished himself as an officer. Within a short time, however, his attitude about the war changed as a result of the brutality he witnessed in the trenches. Besides writing some of the most bitter antiwar poems of the period, he made public statements calling the war "a war of aggression and conquest." Instead of being court-martialed as he expected, he was diagnosed as "shell-shocked" and sent to a hospital. It was while in the hospital that he met Wilfred Owen. The two would remain friends for...