Compare and Costrast Little Libby and Dulce Et Decorum Est

Dulce Et Decorum Est is a poem written by Wilfred Owen during WWI. I believe this poem is excellent because it doesn't only have good imagery, but the language is also very good. Owen uses very harsh words to describe the brutality of war in a place where war was believed to be a heroic act. He says that they were "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks" to describe the tiring condition that they were in. He repeats the words: drowning, If and face in the second and third stanzas to get the readers to identify with the situation. "His face, his hanging face" is a repetition that is well justified because he is describing the condition of the face. He also focuses on the pain and suffering that the soldiers are experiencing and on the desperate need to escape the murderous gas. "Fumbling-stumbling-guttering-choking-drowning" are some of the words he uses to get the reader's attention and he succeeds.

Little Libby is also a poem about death, however, the difference is very obvious. Moore uses a different style to create her poem. She uses "pretty" language to describe the death of "Sweet little Libby" and how beautiful and delicate she was. She compares Libby to a flower that dies too soon in the second stanza and then repeats it in the third. The word "little" appears eight times throughout the poem to over emphasize how little Libby is. She also tells us that her friends mourn for Libby three different times in lines 12, 16 and 17. This repetition seems to make the poem dull. Compared to Owen's poem, this poem lacks the descriptive details of her death. It concentrates more on the way she was and how she was perceived by others. Although both poems are good, Owen's poem is a far more interesting poem because I believe it is written in a more descriptive way.