With reference to Dulce et Decorum Est and Anthem for Doomed Youth by E

With reference to Dulce et Decorum Est and Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen, examine how Wilfred Owen responded to the jingoistic poetryof Jessie Pope. " Who's for the game? The biggest that's played" ================================================ The above quotation is from Jessie Pope's "who's for the game." Wilfred Owen was born in Shropshire on the 18th of March 1893. Owen volunteered for the army in 1914 when the First World War broke out. After training he became an officer and was sent to France at the end of 1916. The following year, Owen took part in the attacks on the German Hindenburg line, where he was suffering from shell shock after a shell burst near him. The horrors of battle quickly transformed Owen and the way he thought about life. The reasons behind Wilfred Owen's poems were to indoctrinate the people of those times. "Dulce et Decorum Est" was to enable Owen to show the true meanings of war and to over right the untruthful poem of Jessie Pope and her propaganda technics. ====================================================================== Jessie Pope's poem " Who's For The Game?" ========================================= There are sporting references such as "Who'll toe the line," "Who'll grip and tackle the job unafraid." Also there are parts of the poem that incur guilt upon the men who hadn't enlisted. "Who wants a turn to himself in the show," "And who wants a seat in the stand?" and "Who thinks he'd rather sit tight?" this technique makes the reader feel responsible and pushes them to join up and be a part of 'the game'. The rhythm of the poem gives an impression of a rhyme, like something you could sing to, this is a strange way to write about the solemn ... ...arison is that of dusk, to the drawing down of blinds in a house in mourning. "And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds," creating the image that dusk is like a blind that is being lowered. The funeral is over and rhetorical question that Owen asked at the beginning of the first stanza has been answered and the noise has vanished. All is now quiet. The long, heav 'd' sounds really drag the ending on and draw the poem to a deliberate close. In conclusion, I feel that both poets are effective, but they both present such different pictures of war. Owen's poems are excellent examples of poetry portraying the realism of war, whereas Pope's poem is an excellent example of the unfortunate attitude cultivated on the home front. The contrast between the two allows the reader to see the reality of the First World War from two immensely different perspectives.