The Heroism of Dying for Ones Country in Poetry Essay -- William Shak

The Heroism of Dying for Ones Country in PoetryThe Volunteer is a Pro-War poem write by Herbert Asquith. Asquithuses roman imagery to invoke a feeling of greatness and honour.Asquith begins his poem by describing the miserable, mundane life of aclerk, working in a city grey. He opens with the words Here liesthat are normally used to begin writing on a gravestone. Thisepitaph - style inception gives the idea that the clerk has now passed by and the poem will concentrate on events onwardhand. We are toldthe clerk has spent half his life doing boring work (..Toiling atledgers..), his days drifting away. There is a unequivocal lack offulfilment in his life, ..With no lance broken in lifes tournament(Lance is roman imagery)And yet he dreams of ..The gleaming eagles of the legions.. andhorsemen ..thundering past beneath the oriflamme.. (or battle flag.)Asquith cleverly uses the expression ..The gleaming eagles of thelegions.. to conjure up ideas in the reviewers mind of great gleaming roman soldiers. This adds to the ideology that war is a glamorous andnoble thing.In his second stanza, Asquith tells us that ..those waiting dreamsare satisfied.. Obviously, the clerk has joined the army. He talks of..waiting dreams.. giving the impression that the clerk has dreamtof this for a very long time. He goes on to say ..From twilight tothe halls of dawn he went.. I think what he means is that the clerkhas gone from his dull city to a new, brighter beginning. And althoughhe died he is happy. ..His lance is broken but he lies content..Because in that high hour in which he lived and died he achievedsomething he had dreamt of forever. Asquith also mentions that the ... ...er uses images of death and an epitaph style openingto convey the message of a valiant death. I dont think that devisingthe reader think of death will inspire him or her to fight for their rude at all. Dulce est Decorum Est is the most effective poem ofthe three. Its usage of vivid and horrific imagery coul d make anypatriotic citizen think again before going to war. The structure ofthe poem is extremely well thought out because it begins to getextremely shocking in the final stanza, almost certainly making thereader sway away from the honourable image he or she had of war beforereading. It then finishes with labelling Dulce et decorum est Propatria mori a lie. This is intelligent because the reader is at hismost easily influenced after reading the horrific description in thefinal stanza and therefore is more likely to agree with this point.