A Comparison Between War Poets: Isaac Rosenberg and Wilfred Owen Who Wrote in the Present Tense and T.S. Eliot Who Wrote in the Past Tense
Many British poets chose to write about World War I to portray the damaging impact it had on society. Three of these poets included Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), and T.S. Eliot (1888-1965). Owen, Rosenberg, and Eliot each have their own way of portraying the violence and trauma of war. Compared to Rosenberg and Owen who write in the present tense enabling them to share their personal emotions and interpretations of war with their readers. Eliot writes of war in the past tense demonstrating his understanding of the progressive aftermath of the war and capturing the reality that was created from the downfall of society including the psychological effects the war had on individuals and on all of society.
Owen, while successfully able to capture his reader's attention by creating compassionate depictions of the suffering that war engendered and combining it with a blunt critique of nationalism, he is focused more on depicting the difficulties experienced by soldiers on the front line rather than the war’s impact on society. Rosenberg utilizes his own experience combined with analysis and specific details of the conflict to capture his audience but does not touch on how it affects society at large. It is because Eliot wrote his poetry after the war that he was able to capture the experience and devastation of society from a retrospective vantage point.
On reading Owen’s poetry, he presents a very empathetic experience for his reader by using imagery, diction, and his own style of creating compassionate depictions of the suffering men endured on the battlefield combined with a blunt critique of nationalism (Anthology 111). His ability to have his readers see the reason in his poetry is what causes him to be seen and viewed as a political danger by the European empire. In his poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” he captures the evident despair in a dying man’s eyes who is suffocating on gas-shells and relates the entire experience to the Latin phrase: “dulce et decorum est,” which translated into English states: how “[s]weet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.” The way in which he describes this ghastly scene with such a calm and measured rhythm strongly persuades his reader to understand that death on the battlefield is not all glory and pride for these men. It becomes a battle to stay alive and Owen is trying to capture that the death of these men is the fault of the European empire who claim that it is a great honour for a man to die for his country.
Owen wrote this poem referring to his experience fighting on the Somme and the reason he wrote it in the present tense is because that is the perfect way to depict the emotional turmoil and despair he felt on the battlefield and believed the other soldiers felt. As a soldier he was living the war and did not have the ability to step back, reflect, and analyze the bigger picture as Eliot does. He could only look back on his experiences during the war and portray his emotional turmoil and strong dislike for nationalism. Comparing Owen’s poetry to Rosenberg’s there is only two similarities; one being that both poets were writing about their experiences as soldiers of the war and the other being that they both wrote their poetry in the present tense. Both poets have their own style in writing war poetry but while Rosenberg’s style is frequently considered as “raw” (Anthology 107) Owen’s style is seen as compassionate, empathetic, and convincing. Owen’s choice to write in the present tense enhance the poetic beauty of his poetry and provide a vivid experience for his reader as to what it was like to be on the battlefield and experiencing the despair of his comrades. Unlike Rosenberg who focuses primarily on capturing the image of war with raw imagery that leaves nothing to the reader’s imagination.
Rosenberg’s poetry is far blunter in character than Owen’s particularly since he does not provide an empathetic experience for the reader. In his poetry he is overly factual about his experiences and portrays them as raw detailed moments that propel the reader into an intense scene that does not seem to end. In the second stanza of his poem “Dead Man’s Dump” he vividly recreates a scene of a wagon riding over the remains of men and women who have been killed during the war. His description leaving nothing to the imagination: “[t]he wheels lurched over sprawled dead / [b]ut pained them not, though their bones crunched / [t]heir shut mouths made no moan” (Anthology 108). By using diction that is disturbing to his readers like his use of the verb crunched it becomes extremely visceral for the reader, placing them directly in the wagon with Rosenberg and the other soldiers. His use of diction creates a horrifying dystopia of what war is using raw direct material and being systematic about how he describes his own experience during the war. His analysis and use of specific details are very disturbing and visceral in nature although it neither touches on his own personal critique of society nor even discusses the effects the war has on society at large. Instead, he focuses on the deceased return to the Earth and to Mother Nature which is made clear when he states how the Earth has waited for them as they aged and worried over their inevitable decay only to realize “[n]ow she has them at last!” (Anthology 108) He goes on to describe their return to the Earth itself and once again becoming one with nature.
His lack of reference to society and how the war has affected it is not purposeful because he wrote his poetry from a specific mental state. He had enlisted in the army because he knew no other means to provide financially for his family and was later killed in 1918 by a German offensive. Identical to Owen’s poetry, Rosenberg experienced the war as a young adult and spent the last few years of his life fighting in the war as Owen had. The success of both Owen and Rosenberg’s poetry was primarily because they were writing from their experience living during a war and being a part of the war as a soldier. Unlike Rosenberg, Owen incorporated his dislike for nationalism in his poetry because he disagreed with the role the church played in the war. He believed it was unfair to describe the act of going to war as an honourable decision and thus shed a disturbing truth behind war itself. Rosenberg did the same, though his style was not compassionate or emotional but raw, disturbing, and logically based on his own experiences. He also captures a disturbing truth of war being that men and women are not meant to die and not be given a proper burial, the point of death is not to be driven over by an army vehicle on its way to cause more death. He describes Mother Nature as a being that has finally captured what she has been waiting for, the sudden death of innocent people who are now “[s]uspended—stopped and held” (Anthology 108). Unlike these two poets Eliot wrote the poem “The Waste Land” as a reference to the destructive aftermath of the war and is thus able to provide a much more complex analysis of the effects the war had on society.
In comparison with Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” Eliot also incorporates intense scenes that invoke an empathetic response in his readers although his poem “The Waste Land” takes on a much more bleak and subjective interpretation of the war. He captures the reality of life after the war and the societal downfall it creates (Anthology 450) by complexly incorporating poetic fragments together to describe a desolate aftermath. A relatable fragment for people of this era starts in the section called “The Fire Sermon” on line 227; a scene that encompasses the depressing mundane activities of a young woman who does not have the strength to protest a sexual assault. In this section Eliot is writing from the perspective of Tiresias who is witnessing the scene and relates to the women admitting that he has “foresuffered all / [e]nacted on this same divan or bed” (Anthology 456) as he is half female half male. By having Tiresias admit that he was once in the very position of the woman it portrays to the reader Eliot’s understanding of the psychological effects the war has had on individuals. This scene, along with the scene described in the section called “The Game of Chess” captures how individuals of society are starting to experience negative psychological effects due to living during the downfall of society. Eliot’s readers can relate to this poem and these fragments because they recognize these negative emotional experiences that have become a normalcy for them. They are living dull dreary lives and Eliot describes them as the undead; sighing in despair and staring aimlessly at their feet as they make their way through the London streets (Anthology 453). Relating his readers to the undead allows Eliot to relate to his readers on a deep intellectual level because he is describing how they don’t seem to be alive like they once were. This scene and the scene in Owen’s poem create an empathetic experience for the reader, but while Owen wrote his poem in the present tense, Eliot wrote his poem in the past tense allowing him to capture the downfall of society. He looks at the idea of the war from a third person perspective rather than a first-person perspective to propel his readers into an intense and complex experience of this world that is a created out of the aftermath of the war as well as the downfall of society. Whereas Eliot and Owen are similar in that they create an empathetic and emotional experience for their readers, Rosenberg and Eliot are alike in the sense that the examples they choose to describe are raw and visceral in nature.
Eliot chooses to incorporate fragments that are relatable and disturbing for his readers, he describes a woman being sexually assaulted by an unattractive man and then continuing with her evening routine as though she was not just raped. This can be related to how Rosenberg vividly describes an army wagon driving over the bones of those who were killed during the war. Although the difference between these two poems is that Eliot’s poem focuses on using multiple visceral examples throughout the poem while Rosenberg focuses on using visceral diction of only one example. Both poems are successful in what they want their reader to experience but Eliot can relate to his reader on a deeper emotional level because he’s references all of society. While Rosenberg is providing a disturbing and visceral experience of what being a soldier during the war was like, having to drive over bodies of the undead. Writing in the present tense allows Rosenberg to create this experience for his readers and provide a raw portrayal of the reality that war was as well as the reality of being a part of the war. By writing in the past tense Eliot was able to reference all of society in the aftermath of the war and the downfall of society. His poem displays how the negative effects of war continue through psychological effects experienced by individuals and the destructive state of the world. The first stanza in the fifth section called “What the Thunder Said” is a good representation of what these psychological effects have done to the individuals of society and the stanza that follows is a good representation of the destruction that was left after the war.
All three of these poets wrote about the war with their own style in mind and while Rosenberg and Owen wrote their poems in the present tense because they have experienced most of their life during the war. Eliot chose to write about the war in the past tense because he wanted to capture the progressive aftermath of the war and capture the reality that was created from the downfall of society. He had a greater interest in the psychological effects the war had on individuals and on all of society, unlike Rosenberg and Owen, he wanted to view the effects of the war from a third person perspective. The difference between these poet’s choices does not make one poet better than the other but portrays how one’s life can greatly influence the choices they make in their poetry. Rosenberg and Owen wanted to portray the violence and trauma of the war by reflecting on their experience living through it, they can share their personal emotions and interpretations of the war with their readers and allow them to experience the emotional turmoil they experienced. This contrast in war poetry is what makes it an interesting experience because you can either read poetry that is a complex representation of the psychological effects war can have on society and on the individuals in that society. Or you can read poetry that propels you directly into no-mans-land where death has become a normalcy for soldiers of the war. Either way, war poetry is a great way to understand what it was like for society and their recovery or for the soldiers who had to live the reality of death and violence for years.
Bibliography
“T.S. Eliot.” The Twentieth Century and Beyond, by Andrew Bailey, vol. 6A, Broadview Press, 2008, pp. 442–461.
“Isaac Rosenberg.” The Twentieth Century and Beyond, by Andrew Bailey, vol. 6A, Broadview Press, 2008, pp. 107–110.
“Wilfred Owen.” The Twentieth Century and Beyond, by Andrew Bailey, vol. 6A, Broadview Press, 2008, pp. 111–123.
