War Poetry

First World War Poetry. Pre-1914 Prose Assignment.
“Choose two patriotic poems and two poems that reveal the reality of war. Write about the four poems in as much detail as possible, comparing the different attitudes of the poets.”
In English, we have read four World War One poems: ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, ‘Disabled’, ‘The Call’ and ‘Who’s For The Game?’ Two different authors have wrote these four poems, Wilfred Owen, who had served his country in the Great War and Jessie Pope, who had never experienced the frontline. This becomes obvious when one reads a poem by a chosen poet, as Jessie Pope was for getting the troops to sign up, while Wilfred Owen had a completely anti-war persona, which had developed after fighting in the First World War. I shall describe fully and deeply in the upcoming paragraphs the attitudes of both the authors.
It all began in August 1914. Otherwise known as the Great War. The cause of it all was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, whom was the heir to the Austrian throne at that time. This killing happened on the 28th June 1914 in Bosnia, a province that Austria had seized in 1908. Austria suspected that Serbia had plotted the murder and so attacked Serbia. Russia supported Serbia; therefore Germany declared was on Russia, and France had stood by the Dual Alliance it had made with Russia. Great Britain and the Commonwealth, France, Belgium, Russia, Serbia and Japan formed the Allies, later to be joined by the United States, Italy, Romania, Greece and several other countries. On the other side were the ‘central powers’ of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Which were soon joined by Turkey and later, Bulgaria. The chief cause of the war was Germany’s desire to spread and to obtain more colonies for its growing population and trade. Its powerful neighbour, Germany, dragged the empire of Austria-Hungary into the conflict. When the war began, most of large nations on the European mainland were ready with armies of several million men raised by a...