Compare the Presentation of War in ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen and ‘for the Fallen’ by Laurence Binyon

For the F completelyen and Dulce Et Decorum Est argon two truly different poesys indirectly expressing Wilfred Owen and Laurence Binyons views on fight. The line of credit of the poems is mainly down to when they were written as Binyon wrote his poem at the very beginning of the war, meaning the poem has a very propagandist and optimistic outlook on the war. He withal wrote it before he visited the front in 1916. However Owen wrote his poem near to the end of the war, in hospital, later on fighting on the western front.Many of his close friends had weakend du cry the war, which probably influenced a lot of the anger in his poems. It is clear in Owens poem that he feels on that point is absolutely no honour in dying for bingles country. He describes a fellow soldier killed in a gas attack, floundring like a man in fire or lime followed by, behind the wagon that we flung him in. The second quote gives the impression that this soldier is just one of many thousands of unnamed individuals who were killed and carted off without any funeral.It gives a message to propagandists and people who think war is glorious, that it is nonhing of the sort. Also Owens title Dulce Et Decorum Est, subject matter It is sweet and fitting. However the poem completely undermines the title saying the opposite and ending with The old Lie Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. Owen uses heavy irony in the title and could also be directing this quote at officers who originally led many soldiers to their death. By contrast, Binyon describes the death of the soldiers at war very differently Death august and royal.Binyon personifies death and makes it honourable, dignifying the death of the soldiers. Binyon also describes the dead soldiers As the stars atomic number 18 known to the Night, which implies that they are always there, sluice if they are not seen in the day, but remembered in their familys dreams every night. Furthermore the title For the Fallen is a euphemism, which like the poem avoids the fact that the soldiers actually died in many gruesome ways during battle. The images that Binyon and Owen require through their language in their poems are very different.Owens descriptions are extremely graphic and create very strong images You could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth corrupted lungs. One can almost see and hear the reality of war through all these descriptions. Owen also manages to create a few kind of unnatural and some eons impossible images Dim, through misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. The word drowning gives us an image of someone drowning in air, which is impossible.By doing this, Owen shows the extreme horror of having to watch someone die in a gas attack. Binyons imagery, by contrast, is very much more idealised and glorifies the soldiers. There are many references to stars and the heavens immortal spheres, As the stars are known to the night, the heavenly pl ain. In the penultimate agate line the word stars is even repeated As the stars that are starry in the time of our time of darkness. By comparing the soldiers to stars, Binyon is erasing any negative references to the horrors of war and creating an image of heaven instead.The use of tone in the two poems is very incompatible as while Binyon adopts a very dignified, patriotic and mournful tone, Owen, on the contrary uses quite a pessimistic and sometimes aggressive tone. Owen does this by development spondees at the beginning of lines Bent Double, Knock-kneed, and Gas Gas By putting two stressed syllables at the start of lines, Owen is avoiding a kind iambic rhythm, and instead creating more of a chaotic effect which is helped by the sudden change to present tense. Owen also uses many words like muck, blood and zest.This sort of vocabulary adds to the poems slightly aggressive tone, with the use of quite hard-hitting and monosyllabic words. However, Binyon, on the contrary is m uch more formal and uses a mixture of latinate and anglo-saxon vocabulary creating both a warm but at the same time, respectful tone. Binyon also plays with word order, using inverted syntax They mingle not, and At the going down of the sun. This gives the poem a greater sense of permission and importance, and even sometimes sounds slightly biblical Flesh of her flesh they were, tactile property of her spirit.In For the Fallen, the form is relatively simple with short four-line verses with the last line always slightly shorter. This could relate to the soldiers lives being prove short but interestingly, these last lines can also be of significance by themselves, describing the soldiers who died Fallen in the cause of the free, They fell with their faces to the foe, To the end, to the end, they remain. The poem is also made up of antonymic lines, the structure being A, B, C, B. The rhyming 2nd and 4th lines represent the uniformity of the poem, while the non-rhyming 1st and 3rd represent the disharmony.There are also antonyms within certain lines music and desolation, glory and tears. The rhythm of the poem is quite irregular, possibly to emphasise the fact that the subject of the poem is too important to give a rum-ti-tum rhythm. Unlike For the Fallen, which is an elegy, Dulce Et Decorum Est is a narrative. The verses are long-range in Owens poem, the first two stanzas 8 lines, and the last 12 lines. The four extra lines in the last stanza almost come across as a personal message from Owen himself My friend, you would not tell with such high zest Also, the last line of the poem, a bit like the ends of Binyons verses, is cut short representing the soldiers lives being cut short Pro patria mori. Not only this, but the fact that the poem ends with the word mori-death- again refers to the soldiers lives. The poem is also set out like a story as it starts by setting the scene, which is followed by the climax in the 2nd stanza, and then the ending. Owen uses swop rhyme which knits all the lines together, making them flow.The rhyme scheme also draws attention to the specific rhyming words at the end of each line which, if engage alone, describe the events taking place e. g. trudge, blind, stumbling, drowning, blood. Owen uses repetition to emphasise certain words Gas Gas , All went lame all blind. The repetition of gas creates much more urgency than if it was just written once. Also, the repetition of all really makes the reader realise that Owen is trying to not just say it was one or two people who were hurt, but everyone.Owen also uses caesura Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All The full-stops in the substance of the lines disrupt the rhythm and maybe draw attention to the fact that the marching is not orderly. Binyon, like Owen, uses some repetition Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, To the end, to the end they remain. The repetition, in this case, with its lulling rhythm, adds to the overall proud and majestic feel of the poem. Another word that Binyon repeats almost constantly through the poem is they.This, in contrast to Owen who specifically describes one person dying in gory detail, unifies all the soldiers into one. Both For the Fallen and Dulce Et Decorum Est, in their own ways, describe soldiers who went to war. However, the two poems are opposite to each other in almost every way, as the points above show. Binyon shows us the glory of patriotism and self sacrifice while Owen shows the cruel reality of what it was truly like in the battlefield. These two poems show us how differently war can be described and interpreted.