The comparative analysis of English and Russian war poetry

Farida Isaeva. The World War I Poetry Introduced by the British and the Russian Poets Wilfred Owen and Nikolay Gumilev. Istanbul Aydin University, Institute of Social Sciences, English Language and Literature. Istanbul. 2014. The WWI poetry is a theme discussed by many researchers. Its influence on people from different generations is irrefutable. The war poetry had various tendencies such as the woman poetry, the trench poetry, the war propaganda poetry. One of the main differences of the poetry of this period is its war lyrics that combined the emotions of the poet with the cruelty of the reality. Thus, war lyrics represent a wide part of the war poetry. The features of war poetry depend on the poet's tendency from being patriotic to protesting against the war. The war poetry united a lot of poets under its title. Many of them wrote their poems at the home front, some of them were the eye-witnesses of the war combat. This work particularly discussed the poems of the Russian and the British poets. Nikolay Gumilev and Wilfred Owen both took part in the WWI. They were influenced and moved by it, which affected their readers. Both poets' works reflected the horrors and uselessness of war. Gumilev tended to believe in the purifying purpose of the war, where all the sinful would burn and the new world would grow after. In turn, Owen was protesting against the war, its futility, brutality towards the young soldiers loosing lives for no reason. Both poets used Christian symbols and allusions in their works. Key words: World War I, Wilfred Owen, Nikolay Gumilev, Akmeism, war poetry.