1914 Literary Elements

The poem is narrated in the third person from the perspective of an omniscient speaker.

The poem is a Petrarchan sonnet. It is made up of an octave and a sestet written in iambic pentameter.

The use of metaphor is noted in the weather seasons to describe the different time periods. Spring being the emergence of newness defines Ancient Greece with the glory of summer representing Ancient Rome. With the fall of Rome and the modern era yielding much progress akin to the autumn season.

“War broke: and now the Winter of the world / With perishing great darkness closes in.”

The speaker acknowledges that growth has been abundant in the previous periods yet it has all been brought down by a much more advanced society.

War poetry

The poem is set in the Western parts of Europe in 1914.

Critical; Reminiscent; Somber yet optimistic

The speaker is the protagonist while war specifically the Great War is the antagonist.

The major conflict is the destruction and barbarism that war has brought down on human civilization destroying the progress made in previous eras.

The climax reaches when the speaker asserts that human civilization has presently disintegrated compared to the past eras.

The poem foreshadows the praise towards Ancient Greece and Rome by recognizing the present society as winter – the fourth season – and the past as spring, summer, and autumn.

N/A

The poem alludes to the historical periods from Ancient Greece into 20th century Europe as human civilization went through changes and progress.

Verse is a synecdoche for poetry.

“Verse wails”

“Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin. / The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.”

The speaker uses hyperbole to emphasize the lack of rationality, compassion, affection, and also societal decay in the current state of war.

Blazed is onomatopoeic.