How Diction Shapes the Message in a Poem: Anti-War and Pro-War Sentiments in War Poetry
Overview
This essay examines how diction and word choice function as tools to convey contrasting messages about war in poetry. The paper analyzes anti-war poems such as Wilfred Owen's Dulce Decorum Est and Mary Borden's Song of the Mud alongside pro-war poems like Lovelace's To Lucasta, Going to the Wars, demonstrating how poetic language reflects the persona's attitudes toward military conflict.
What this essay covers
- Introduction establishing war as a persistent human conflict and poetry as a medium for soldier expression
- Anti-War Sentiments section analyzing Owen and Borden's use of imagery and tone to critique war horrors
- Pro-War Sentiments section examining how Lovelace employs persuasive diction to defend military service as honorable
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How Diction can Shape the Message in a Poem
Introduction
Since ancient times, humans have resorted to war as an alternative to solving disagreements. In the modern world, war affairs have been part of the foreign policies of powerful nations like the USA and Russia. The USA, for instance, has been involved in several military confrontations in the past few decades, including the Vietnam war and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan following 9/11. Through poetry and other literary works, soldiers on the front have expressed themselves in different ways, among them, their displeasure or pleasure for war. Thus, the diction and the choice of words for each poem appear to be driving an agenda while at the same time, telling us the thoughts of the persona. This paper will explore some of these differences based on the poems below.
Anti-War Sentiments
The setup of any defense force requires discipline and strict adherence to a protocol. For many soldiers, being on the battlefield is a grave experience. This could explain why we have many cases of post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans coming back from war. Some of their predicaments are what fuels the anti-war sentiments. In Dulce Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen talks to us about the horrors of the war. This poem is interesting because while the tone seems to be encouraging the soldiers to fight on, it also paints a grim picture of what the soldiers are experiencing and seeing.