War poems Essay

The war poets Wilfred Owen, Robert Binyon and Alec Waugh make powerful use of language features to not only portray their views on war, but to intensify the reader’s emotions as well. Binyon uses euphemism to glorify war, and in essence, serve his propagandist purpose in the poem For the Fallen. However, both Owen and Waugh use graphic, hard hitting language to reveal the gruesome truth of war through the poems Dulce et Decorum Est and Cannon Fodder.
The poem For the Fallen by Robert Binyon was first published in The Times newspaper in Britain as a piece of propaganda to persuade young men to join the army. He uses very formal language to cushion the reader’s eyes from the true brutality of war. This is seen predominantly in the fourth and the most important stanza, as it is in italics: “They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.” Binyon finishes this stanza with the four words “We will remember them.” This last line, along with the first, suggests the immortality of the soldiers. What he is saying is that they will always be with us, along with their legacy and heroic actions.
Another technique that highlights and signifies the soldier’s immortality in For the Fallen is the motif of stars. This motif is metaphorical. But the most effective line says “Sing sorrow up into immortal spheres.” As well as being a powerful metaphor for the stars itself, calling them ‘immortal’, Binyon is also saying that everyone will celebrate you as a hero, once again, glorifying death. “Sing sorrow up…” could imply that their songs would rise to heaven. This again shows the soldiers immortality, as they have gone to heaven. But heaven is a metaphorical place, not literal. So when their songs rise up, they rise to the emptiness of space, and are forgotten. I think it is unusual how he uses the word ‘immortal’ as, just like the soldiers, the stars