1st Stanza War Front example essay topic

~ Anthem For Doomed Youth What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? - Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayer nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, - The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds. Overview. Anthem - short musical composition, usually sung... Stark anthesis is used to present a shocking lamentation against the barbarity of war... This anthem voices the sounds of battle... Death, violence and sacrifice are central subjects...

This poem is an extended metaphor (funeral)... Personification is used as the main technique... Tonal shifts from anger / bitter - elegiac mood. Structure. Sonnet, 14 lines, 2 stanzas, 2 quatrains, 1 sestet...

A BAB C DCD... 10 - beat iambic pedometer rhythm... Rhetorical questions to start each stanza... Ends in rhyming couplet. Themes.

Doomed Youth - negative, emotive... Waste / pity - loss of life, waste... Funeral - recurring image, extended metaphor. Language. Descriptive language... Demonic force - torture, consume...

Emphasis on the funeral... Simile, metaphor, personification... Juxtaposition - sets the scene. Rhyme and Rhythm. Tightly controlled within sonnet structure... Para-rhyme, used to heighten mournful tone...

Slower rhythmic beat in final quatrain... Sound mirrors emotion. Symbolism and Imagery. Funeral symbols... Religious connotations of faith, salvation... Romanticized images of fallen soldiers...

Visual depiction of the mourner's face... Integrates the themes of doomed youth and funeral... 1st stanza - war front... 2nd stanza - home front. Detailed Analysis Stanza 1. 'Anthem' - song for helpless young boys...

'Doomed Youth' - assonance... Rhetorical questions to start both stanza's 'What passing bells for these who die as cattle?' 'What candles may be held to speed them all?'. 'Only the monstrous... ' 'Only the stuttering... ' - repetition of the word 'only's tresses the nature of their deaths... 'Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle' - personification, alliteration and onomatopoeia combine as methods to make war seen more brutal, violent and cruel... 'Can patter out their hasty orisons' - sense of speed. 'orisons' - prayer at funeral...

'No mockeries' - Christian rites seen as 'mockeries'... 'No prayers now for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any... ' - negative connotations are stressed by the alliterative repeated use of 'no' and 'nor'... Dash and comma create pause which stresses that no funeral can be given... '... save the choirs, - The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;' - repetition of 'choirs' heightens the contrast... Alliteration of 's's of tens the tone. Stanza 2. Rhetorical question 'What candles may be held to speed them all?' softens the tone and makes it more compassionate...

'Not in the hands of the boys... ' - 'boys's tresses their youth and vulnerability which goes back to the title... 'The pallor of girl's brows shall be their pall;' - funeral theme continued with the reference to 'pall' which means shroud and is also a pun on 'pallor'... 'And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds' - the tone of a prayer is captured by the solemn pace and rhythm of the last time... '... each slow dusk a drawing... ' this phrase reinforces the cycle of life and death. ~ Dulce et Decorum Est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards out distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod.

All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas! GAS! Quick boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And found " ring like a man in fire on lime... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, - My friend, you would not tell with such a high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. Overview. Title written by roman poet Horace...

Graphic and confronting recounts - showing detail... Frenzied hurry of gas... Highlights the pity of war, wastefulness. Subject Matter. 4 irregular length stanzas...

3 main stanzas, 1st before, 2nd during, 3rd after... 1st stanza - sets the scene prior to attack... 2nd stanza - outburst of warning and attack... 3rd stanza - sheer horror unfolds.

Themes. Betrayal - condemnation... Sacrifice - exhaustion... Pity - wretched conditions. Language. Graphic similes, visual imagery...

Emotive language... Hyperbole, alliteration. Symbolism and Imagery. Colour and water imagery... Visual and aural imagery. Tone and Mood.

Bleak... Sombre... Depressing. Sad... Angry... Pitiful.

'Bent double', 'Knock-kneed' - visual images shows severe pain and utter exhaustion... '... like old beggars under sacks' - images of poverty and destitution... 'Knock-kneed' - alliteration... '... we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,' men unified by suffering as they move away behind the front line... 'Men marched asleep' - men reduced to the level of robots... 'All went lame, all blind' - hyperbole stresses their common condition... 'Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots' - numb to their senses, which have become deadened and beyond feeling... 'hoots' - onomatopoeia... 'Of gas-shells dropping... ' - tension enters with the hint of being caught off-guard... '... softly behind. ' - antithesis of ideas, shells fall 'softly'.

Stanza 2. 'Gas! GAS! Quick boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,' - sudden explosion of action, instructional language, exclamation to show panic, desperation... '... just in time' - anti-climax the men are safe... 'But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire on lime. ' - senses of sight, sound and feeling.

Similes are highly evocative. References to present participles, 'fumbling', 'stumbling', 'drowning' are highly emotive and visual... '... thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. ' - reference to 'green' links the imagery to the sea and 'drowning'... 'I' - immediacy is heightened by use of personal pronoun. Stanza 3. 'In my dreams before my helpless sight He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

' - 2 line stanza effectively takes the reader to the nightmarish scene. Stanza 4. '... you too could pace' - reader is now embedded into the scene 'you' forcing them to empathize with the injured victim... 'And watch the white eyes writing in his face,' - alliteration and assonance combine to make this image utterly horrific... Readers are confronted not only with the disgusting sight of a pain ravaged face but also the sounds and taste of suffering... 'Come gargling... ' - onomatopoeia startles the reader... 'Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -' - Owen seeks to shock the reader, to disgust them with the realities of war.

The word 'innocent's tresses the man's helplessness... 'My friend, you would... ' - tone of bitter scorn and sarcasm in the address 'My friend'... 'To children ardent for some desperate glory,' - stresses that if they only 'knew' what men really endured then war could never be seen as glorious... 'The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. ' - throughout history young men have been lied to by the 'old Lie' that glorifies war... 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' - it is sweet and noble to die for your country.