From Patriotism to understanding

            The First World War was an industrial war in which hundreds of thousands of men were exposed to extreme physical conditions. This was because the armies of men were positioned in the trenches at stalemate. The emotional effects that occurred were due to the fact that they no one had experience anything like this before.
             The four poets all take different approaches in attempting to portray the effect that war has on the people involved. Rupert Brooke wrote towards the start of the war, this is why when you read his poems there is a strong air of patriotism, unlike Siegfried Sassoon who focuses more on protesting about the war. Wilfred Owen goes on to portray the emotional side of the war where some people become angry about it whereas Isaac Rosenberg goes on the search for understanding. Faulks uses different characters throughout Birdsong to portray the changing response to war. These characters vary between times, we see what effects the war has on people actually involved in the war and on people many tears after the war has finished.
             As I said above, Brooke is a poet that focuses more on the patriotic side of the war, his poem "The Soldier" represents this fact very well. Them poem itself soldier is written in the form of a sonnet, 14 lines of iambic pentameter, divided into an octave and sestet. The poem is written as if it was the last words of a soldier, writing a message to his family and loved ones whilst on the battlefield. It uses repetition to get the point of the poem across, the word England is used many times to emphasis the patriotic nature of the poem and makes it seem somewhat passionate. It grows in emotion towards the end as the use of commas increases, this could be to suggest tears which supports the theory that it might be a soldiers last words. The whole poem actually personifies England: -.
             "Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;".
             This along with patriotism creates a powerful and emotional justification for war, which is what many people had a yearning for during the 1st world war.