‘Anthem For Doomed Youth’ Written by Wilfred Owen.
The essay is to compare Attack and Anthem For Doomed Youth.
In both poems the poet has described life in the World War 1 but at different stages. In ‘Attack’ he is about to go into battle from a trench whereas in ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ he is being more general, but they are both cataclysmic.
The first line in ‘Attack’ is about the actual battle-taking place at dawn, so straight away you know what’s happening and it sets a mood, which is calm but is also goading.
In ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ the first line is a rhetorical question, which is about men during the war that went into battle and died, but bells are ringing in their honour. Then the rest of the stanza is like the answer to the question by telling you what was going on during that time.
Both of these lines set your mind to think about life in the war and what’s going to happen next.
In the second line of ‘Attack’ it’s very atmospheric, because it goes on to say that the troops massed in to battle in the ‘glowering sun’, which is personification because glowering is a human life form and the sun can’t glower. In the second line of ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ it uses personification by quoting ‘ anger of the guns’. Its personification because it is giving guns a human form ‘anger’. The guns are angry because its war and they’re firing at the enemy and it isn’t a nice sound.
These lines open the poem out more by describing some of the details what it was like, such as the sun and gunfire.
The line three of ‘Attack’ it uses alliteration and sibilance. The words used to alliterate were ‘smouldering, spouts, smoke and shroud’. Smoke is a metaphor; shroud is a cover for a dead person but in this case it’s an image of death by being a cover for all the dead bodies so it’s a simile as well. and smouldering is burning slowly. The third line in ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ is about gunfire ‘Rifles rapid rattle’ is onomatopoeic because the words sound like what they are and it is alliterative with all the words beginning with r.
These lines contrast by both being about one certain thing in the battles of each poem.
The fourth line of ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ goes on about getting rid of careless prayers that the choir are doing for the soldiers and it means they’ll die, whereas in ‘Attack’ personification is used to describe a bomb holed slope with dead people on the are falling ‘one by one’ which I feel is effective and very clear to understand.
These two lines not similar because one goes on about the war and the other is on about the choir trying to get god on their side with prayers, so I think that it is effective with descriptive words like ‘menacing and hasty’.
Line five of ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ is about making no wounding remarks with prayers or bells. In ‘Attack’ it says about tanks flattening barbed wire to help troops get over it with out being noticed.
These lines to me calm the poem down a bit with more of a creeping motion or suggesting feelings.
The sixth line of ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ its still became calm because the voice isn’t there so it represents sadness.
In ‘Attack’ its describes a barrage as guns firing bullets into one another’s trenches to batter it before the attack. The troops are ‘bowed’ because of all the weapons they are carrying on their backs.
It makes you feel as if you were actually there at the battle with the troops the amount of description that has been used throughout the poem, whereas the other poem is more of a religious one with the vocabulary used in that one.
Line seven of ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ goes on about shells firing from the guns which sounds like a choir to the troops, but its more of a insane choir because its different. ‘Attack’ it just tell you what’s on the troops back for the reason that they’re bowed.
I feel that these lines both describe the attack stage of the battle when they’re out of their trenches, with noise of guns and ducking for cover.
The eighth line of ‘ Anthem for Doomed Youth’ the poet describes the start of death with ‘bugles’ sounding from sad area. In ‘Attack’ it shows how determined they are to stay alive with ‘jostling’ to get to where they had to.
These lines are completely different because the one describes the ending and the other is half way through.
‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ starts a new stanza with a rhetorical question, which means good and evil with no candles or bells. In ‘Attack’ line nine talks about the last prayer because the troops are scared now and they are muttering their last words, which emphasizes the dread that they feel.
This part starts to make you feel a bit sad because you wouldn’t want to be in that position, so you feel sorry for them.
Line ten of ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ is about looking back at the brave soldiers who fort in the war. In ‘Attack’ it tells you about them getting out of the trench and going into battle.
So now you gets worse because in ‘Attack’ they are about to die and in ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ they’re looking back on times you’d rather forget.
The eleventh line of ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ it is thinking about light shining on the troops for their bravery in the war.
‘Attack’ uses alliteration ‘blank and busy’ because the moment is like a movie where it goes into slow motion as they’re running across the field.
So know it starts to make you want it to stop in ‘Attack’ and in the other poem it stays sad.
The penultimate line in ‘Attack’ says about the little bit of hope that the troops have of surviving, and in ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ its talks about their wives coming to visit them in their coffins.
Now they’re ending they become less grappling and more understand and calm.
The last line in ‘Attack’ is an exclamation about the poet actually speaking to god to stop the war because how dreadful it is. Whereas in ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ it talks about the wives placing flowers in memory like on Remembrance Day.
These lines are both opposite because ‘Attack’ is on about trying to stop the war and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ is about peoples though of the war.
The last line of ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ has huge impact because it explains about how the troops lives are at an end with ‘drawing-down of blinds’ as if they have just died in the evening.
I think that both poems have a lot in common because the poets were friends during the war and they wrote in similar ways. I prefer ‘Attack’ because I think it is more exciting than ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, which is more religious and sad.
