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Library's collection Library's IT development CancelWilfred Owen was a soldier poet during the First World War. In Wilfred
Owen?s poems, patriotism becomes the central theme. At that time, patriotism was
put as the outmost need in Britain. In order to get more soldiers, the British
government distorted the meaning of patriotism. The government lied to the
soldiers that they would get glory and rewards after the war. Actually what they
got were the physical and psychological scars due to the brutality of war they
experienced. Wilfred Owen?s poems, particularly ?Apologia Pro Poemate Meo?
and ?Insensibility,? reveal the distortion of the meaning of patriotism seen in the
perspective of the soldiers. I choose to analyze those poems because I am curious
to know how Owen reveals the distortion of the meaning of patriotism that has
been done during the First World War in his poems. Since the setting of the
poems was during the First World War, I need the background information about
Britain during the First World War, especially the Military Service Act. In order
to find out how of the meaning of patriotism is distorted, I use literary approach
and the elements of poetry as my tools, such as diction, imagery, tone and figures
of speech: irony, metaphor, paradox, symbol, simile, metonymy, synecdoche and
personification. In the analysis, I find out the meaning of patriotism has been
distorted in those two poems especially through the use of the elements of poetry.