Poetry is one of the most elaborate works of art in our society. There are numerous literary elements that go into writing poetry and as Robert Frost once said, it has countless “rhythmical compositions of words used to express attitude and arouse emotional response” (pg, xxix). The beauty of poetry though is that it can mean so many things to one person and be interpreted entirely different by another. One way that this is done is by establishing what the tone is in a particular poem. The tone ii the poem is immensely important because it tells the reader the attitude or feeling the poet takes toward a theme or subject. In other words, how the author feels about the subject in the poem. This is done by the choice of certain words or the inclusion of certain details rather than others. There can be two poems that are written about the same subject, but mean entirely different things because of the tone conveyed by the poet. For example, Richard Lovelace “To Lucasta On Going to the Wars”, and Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est”, are both poems written about war, but the poems’ difference in tones make the two very different pieces from each other. Although both poems are written about the same subject, the authors’ tone leave the reader with a very different understanding of each poem and its meaning.
The Poem “To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars”, written in 1649 by Richard Lovelace, is a short poem about going to war with themes involving love, honor, and sacrifice. In the