The Telling Truth to War
E.E. Cummings and Wilfred Owen both use their poetic nature to describe how they feel about war. Both poets use sarcasm in a manner that is easily understood by the reader. Many people today feel the same way both of these poets feel about war. They believe that it is unnecessary and people lose their lives for a cause that is not understood by many. Both poets believe it is unfair that soldiers lose their lives in battles that should not be going on in the first place. It is not directly stated in either cases, but it easy to tell from the nature of the words they use to describe the situations. Both E.E. Cummings and Wilfred Owen use sarcasm to portray their emotions though their writing. These poets have similar and different ways of allowing their reader to understand what they are feeling.
In the poem “next to of course god america i” E.E. Cummings uses direct sarcasm to express his beliefs of was in this poem taken from a speech. He writes “why talk of beauty what could be more beautiful that these heroic happy dead” (931). He speaks of the veterans that died for their country and the way their deaths are portrayed now. Many people have this idea that the people that died in the war did so with this great pride and glory. Because Cummings believes that these people “rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter” (931) he thinks that this happy death is nothing more than a vague idea that people have in order to make themselves feel better about a soldier’s death. That idea seems to mask the situation at hand and undermines the real emotions soldiers may feel when wounded or killed in battle. Cummings shows no patriotism in his poem and the emptiness that he portrays allows the reader to understand that he shows no tolerance for war. He has an anti-war attitude that easily comes across to the readers. As opposed to Owen’s poem he seems to attack the idea of anti patriotism in a very cynical manner. (931)
In the...