Evaluating And Interpreting Poetry Critical Thinking Examples

Both of these poems convey the hardships endured by brave soldiers in war. “Dulce et Decorum est” by Wilfred Owen is packed with detailed imagery of the horrors that the soldiers of World War I experienced. Written in the first person point-of-view, the description of a man dying from poison gas is extremely terrifying and graphic. He writes, “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood / Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, / Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud / Of vile” (21-4). These lines describe an awful scene of the death of a soldier. E.E. Cummings’ poem, “next to of course god america i” is similarly about war. However, it is written from the point-of-view of a listener reporting the lines of a speaker. In this poem, the speaker is obviously very patriotic. It starts out, “next to of course god america i / love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth” (1-2). Though the speaker is very supportive of men dying for their country, we can see through the use of sarcasm and word choice that the listener might think otherwise. After listening to both poems, I was able to notice a greater sense of dramatic detail. Hearing the poems from a man’s voice really seemed to add emotion to the lines. These two poems were likely assigned together because of the similar message that they share. Both poets attempt to convey to the reader a message about the nature of war. They were each horrified with the way that these young and innocent soldiers were slaughtered in the war in order to fight for their country. They see these deaths as a waste. For example, Owen believes that the Latin phrase at the end (meaning “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”) is an “old lie” (27). Similarly, Cummings’ line “they did not stop to think they died instead” (12) shows that the soldiers were more foolish than brave. I have always believed that opinions like these regarding war were right. Personally, I would never go to war and die for my country. However, I am very thankful that other people are willing to.