Political Poetry of Wilfred Owen

¶ … Political Poetry of Wilfred Owen and Langston Hughes

Both the British World War I poet Wilfred Owen and the Harlem Renaissance author Langston Hughes used poetry to express their outrage about the lies of politics and the refusal of politicians to truly serve humankind. In "Dulce et Decorum Est" Owen describes a horrific encounter during his experience with trench warfare, when a gas bomb was lobbed into the foxhole where he and his fellow soldiers were mired. He put on his gas mask quickly, but one of his fellow soldiers was not so lucky. "In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, / He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning." The bitter title of the poem refers to the lie that Owen was told as a schoolboy and as a new recruit, that it is sweet to die for one's country. The man's death is horrific, and even the living soldiers are miserable, cold, poorly clothed, fed, and "blood shod." Instead of love and life, the young men must sacrifice themselves for a war they do not understand or believe in, and all they have are cliches to sustain their spirits during times of peril.

Langston Hughes, like Owen, speaks of dreams, ugly dreams that are deferred rather than fulfilled. To dream is a beautiful thing or should be. But instead, the dreams of the dispossessed crust over "like a syrupy sweet," or sag, or exploded. The title of the poem "Harlem" underlines the fact that the deferral of a dream is not personal, but a collective injustice of deferral inflicted upon an entire populace. Like Owen, Hughes speaks for his generation, not merely himself. There is again the irony of the beautiful ideal, and the reality, although for Hughes the ideal of the dream is desirable, unlike the concept of dying for one's country. Also in Hughes there is a sense that perhaps, because the residents of Harlem can still dream, that a better tomorrow is conceivable, while Owen's soldiers seem resigned to the fact that they will die, or never be the same men again once they return, because of what they have seen.

Informal Essay: A hero from history

When examining our current historical difficulties, we must acknowledge that a number of perplexing problems challenge the world. We are consuming too many of our natural resources and our use of fossil fuels threaten the survival of our planet. The developing world seems to placing further strains upon the earth, with no signs of abatement in population growth or industrialization. We are torn apart by nationalism rather than united as a species, in the Middle East, in Africa, and Eastern Europe. We have more material goods, but less spiritual satisfaction.

In answer to all of these questions, we must look to the persona of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi, first and foremost, grappled with issues afflicting the region, and the cultures and faiths that are most troubling to the geopolitical crisis of today, namely the tensions between the Muslim and Hindu populations of East Asia. He also provided many solutions to all peoples, not just his own. His philosophy of nonviolence inspired Martin Luther King Jr. He also embraced people of all classes, even the untouchables of his own nation. His all-inclusive actions broke down some of the oldest social barriers that existed in the world.