poetry
explication(rewrite)
1222 words
"Greater Love" is a poem about the
painful memories experienced by Wilfred Owen in World War I. These memories
seem to overshadow the memories he has for his love. All Quiet on the Western
Front is a novel whcich is also about
World War I. The description of the war
is similar in both works. Experiencing the terrors of war changed the outlook
Owen has on life, and this poem describes his new outlook.
The theme of "Greater Love" is how
the war has changed the author's look on life. Before the war Owen tells how he
had fond memories of his love singing, her lips, and her eyes. After
experiencing the war Owen remembers the bright red blood-covered stones, as
stated in line 2. He remembers the knife
skewed limbs instead of the slender
limbs of his love. Rather than her beautiful eyes he remembers the eyes of
blinded men which he witnessed injured in his stead. The memories of the dear
singing voice of his love are no longer soft after witnessing the voices of
those past disappear to never again be heard. The heart of his love is not a
big as the hearts he witnessed being filled with bullets. Nor is the memory of
her heart as vivid as the memory of those hearts filled with shot. The paleness
of his love's skin can not compare to the paleness of the dead bodies of the
soldiers scattered across the battlefields. Thus, the death and gruesomeness of
this poem contribute to the theme of the war changing Owen into a sad soldier
no longer able to remember the days when he would woo his love. Owen's tone is
regretful. Owen expresses regret for letting comrades fall in his place and
because he can no longer see the world or his love the way that he once could.
The mood of the poem is one of sorrow. The author is sorry that he had to
witness the blind being led through the streets and the English bodies falling
dead on the rocks. Many literary devices
express the theme, mood, and tone; in the poem "Greater Love" the
following are examples. Within the poem Owen uses several literary devices for
conveying his message. Alliteration is used in the second line, "the
stained stones." Owens is calling attention to the fact that the stones
covered in blood are more memorable in his mind
than the memories of his love's sweet lips. Consonance places emphasis
on the redness of the stones, "stained stones" (L 2). Alliteration is
used once again to describe the ties between "...wooed and
wooer..."(L 3). Wilfred Owen's poem is a dramatic monologue because he is
speaking to his love and her responses are not recorded within the poem. The
rhyme scheme of this poem is standard, with six lines to a stanza the scheme
would be written AABBBA CCDDDC EEFFFE GGHHHG.
The poem "Greater Love could be considered in its self an analogy
between the authors memories of his love and his memories of the gruesome war.
All is Quiet on the Western Front and
"Greater Love" are two similar works of literature because they were
both written about World War I. Both narrator, Owen and Paul, portray the war
as a sad and tragic time which changed, in Paul's case ended, the lives of the
narrator. Owen implies throughout his poem that the memories of war have faded
and corrupted the memories he once had of a society which he fit into. The same
is true of Paul in All Quiet on the Western Front; Paul's life was destroyed by
the war. When he returned home on leave Paul relized his former home was now a
place of uncomfort. In line two Owen says this, "As the stained stones
kissed by the English dead." In this phrase Owen is revealing the horror
of his mission in the war. Owen was once a soldier who witnessed the horrors of
Englishmen falling dead and their blood making the gray stones look red. Then
later on in line 6 he states, "When I behold your eyes blinded in my
stead!" Owen is referring to the fact that he saw the eyes of men blinded
while his eyes were spared, and he portrays this memory with a feeling of
sorrow that his sight was not taken. Paul describes a war experience that was
very similar to that of the experience had by Owen. Paul describes scene after
scene were his friends are either injured or killed. Paul expresses these
experiences with the same tone as Owen; a tone which questions the reasons
Paul's friends were hurt in the place of Paul.
In this scene Paul is describing the death of his close friend Muller. ,
"Muller is dead. Someone shot him point blank in the stomach with a Verey
light. Before he died he handed over his pocket book to me, and bequeathed me
his boots-the same he once inherited from Kemmerich."(p 279). After this
Paul goes on to describe how when he dies he shall leave the boots to Tjaden.
This event occurs late in the war after the soldiers have been fighting many
years and they have no hope left. Their lives are worth almost nothing to them
and the death of another has become an oppertunity to gain a new pair of boots.
It seems terrible that death carries such weak meaning, but if there was a huge
mourning period for every death in the war the time of mouring would be
impractical. The strain mourning for all the fallen would also drain the
stamina of a soldier after only a few comrades have fallen. Memories such as
the ones expressed by Paul and by Owen are the type of memories which change a
person's outlook, and the outlooks of the narrators were definitively affected
by their experiences and these experiences were reflected in their works. The
memories of the war were dominate in
Owen's mind, and he always introduced by
phrases with words opposite of their normal conotation. An example would be in
line 2 kissed, a word with a positive connotation introduces the fact that dead
soldiers blood had been spilled on the rocks making them bright red. The
situation being described is a negative one which is introduced by the positive
word "kissed". The opposite is also true, that being a positive
phrase is introduced by a word with a negative connotation. An example would be
in line 13, the word "not" is used to introduce a phrase concerning
his love voice. The singing voice of one's love is usually regarded as
positive, yet Owens uses the word "not" to introduce this phrase.
This style is showing that in Owen's mind the ideas being introduced by
positive words were the ideas which mattered and were extremely relevant to his
life at the time which he wrote this poem.
"Greater Love" and All Quiet on the Western Front are two very different works of literature
which both convey the message of the gruesomeness of World War I. By reading
and comparing these two pieces readers can better understand that any format of
writting can be used to convey the same message.
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