War poems Comparison - The Send-Off and Ducle et decorum est
Uploaded by [-red-] on Feb 25, 2001
All Wilfred Owens’s poems seem to rhyme. The ends of the alternate lines rhyme in most all of his poems for example in “The send off” The 1st line ends in way and the 3rd in gay. This is repeated with other rhyming words all through the poem. On the 7th and 9th lines the rhyme is tramp and camp. In “Ducle et decorum est” we can see the same format of rhyming. The end of each alternate line rhymes i.e. the ends of the 1st and 3rd lines in this case sacks and backs, and the end of the 9th and 10th lines fumbling and stumbling.
Both these poems were written in the 1st world war and are by the author Wilfred Owen who died seven days before the end of the first world war. Both suggest that the out come of the war was grim for the vast majority of solders who if they came home at all would ether return home dead or injured.
Death seems to be mentioned a lot in Wilfred Owen’s poems for example the title of “Ducle et decorum est” in an English translation means It is sweet and fitting to die for ones country. Throughout the poem more pictures are painted of death and funerals e.g.
“As under a green sea I saw him drowning.”
“He plunges at me guttering, choking, drowning”
From the next quotes we can see that Wilfred Owen must have suffered from nightmares about the war and the trenches. He says
“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”
Pictures of death are also painted in the poem “The send-off” and I think that Wilfred Owen is trying to put forward the idea that when you are “sent off” you never come back.
“A few, a few too few for drums and yells,
may creep back silent to village wells”
The quote below shows us that Wilfred Owen saw “The send-off” as a funeral. The quote leads you to get the impression that death is mocking the flowers and spray and turning them into flowers and spray for funerals.
“Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers”
The quote
“Shall they return to beating bells”
on line 16 is almost asking a question. Will they return? I think this shows us that Wilfred Owens’s...