Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Throughout the ages, poetry has played--and continues to play--a significant part in the shaping of a generation. It ranges from passionate sonnets of love to the gruesome realities of life. One such example of harsh realism is Wilfred Owen 's "Dulce et Decorum Est." Owen 's piece breaks the conventions of early 20th Century modernism and idealistic war poetry, vividly depicts the traumatizing experiences of World War I, and employs various poetic devices to further his haunted tone and overall message of war 's cruel truths.

     The irony in the poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” is that it is not sweet and fitting to die for one’s country when you have actually experienced war. Owen is describing how psychologically and physically exhausting World War I was for the soldiers that had to tolerate such a cruel suffering and not how patriotic and honorable it was. It shows the true life of a soldier, lying low, ill, endlessly marching through mud with bloody

“Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poem written by English soldier and a poet, Wilfred Owen. He has not only written this poem, but many more. Such as “Insensibility”, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, “Futility”, “Exposure”, and “Strange Meeting” are all his war poems. (Poets.org) His poetry shows the horror of the war and uncovers the hidden truths of the past century. Among with his other poems “Dulce et Decorum Est” is one of the best known and popular WWI poem. This poem is very shocking as well as thought provoking showing the true experience of a soldiers in trenches during war. He proves the theme suffering by sharing soldiers’ physical pain and psychological trauma in the battlefield. To him that was more than just fighting for owns country. In this poem, Owen uses logos, ethos, and pathos to proves that war was nothing more than hell.

In Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” the speaker’s argument against whether there is true honor in dieing for ones country in World War I contradicts the old Latin saying, Dulce et Decorum Est, which translated means, “it is sweet and honorable to die for the fatherland”; which is exemplified through Owen’s use of title, diction, metaphor and simile, imagery, and structure throughout the entirety of the poem.

Another tool in developing the effectiveness of the poem is the use of compelling figurative language in the poem helps to reveal the reality of war. In the first line, the metaphor, ?Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,?(1) shows us that the troops are so tired that they can be compared to old beggars. Also, the simile "coughing like hags"(2) helps to depict the soldiers? poor health and depressed state of mind. Owen makes us picture the soldiers as ill, disturbed and utterly exhausted Another great use of simile, ?His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,?(20) suggests that his face is probably covered with blood which is the color symbolizing the devil. A very powerful metaphor is the comparison of painful experiences of the troops to ??vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.?(24) This metaphor emphasizes that the troops will never forget these horrific experiences. As you can see, Owen has used figurative language so effectively that the reader gets drawn into the poem.

In the third stanza of “Dulce et Decorum Est,” Wilfred Owen states, “If in some dreams you too could pace/ Behind the wagon the we flung him in,/ And watch the whites of his eyes writhing in his face,/ His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;/ If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood/ Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,/ Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud/ Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-/ My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/ To children ardent for some desperate glory,/ The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori. This quotation protest war using irony by describing a horrific and brutal death of a soldier due to a gas attack.

who have not slept in a bed for weeks on end. In the description "his

    Through vivid imagery and compelling metaphors "Dulce et Decorum Est" gives the reader the exact feeling the author wanted. The poem is an anti-war poem by Wilfred Owen and makes great use of these devices. This poem is very effective because of its excellent manipulation of the mechanical and emotional parts of poetry. Owen's use of exact diction and vivid figurative language emphasizes his point, showing that war is terrible and devastating. Furthermore, the utilization of extremely graphic imagery adds even more to his argument. Through the effective use of all three of these tools, this poem conveys a strong meaning and persuasive argument.

Analysing Willfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est. ‘Dulce ET Decorum Est’ is an anti-war poem, which emphasizes the intensity of war. The meaning of the ironic title roughly translated into ‘it is good and honourable’ but is not fully established until you examine the poem. The full title ‘Dulce ET Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori’ means ‘it is good and honourable to die for your country’.

‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is another of Wilfred Owen’s poems that conveys inner human conflict, in terms of past doings in World War I. The poem was written in 1917 at Craiglockhart (Owen’s first battle after his rehabilitation due to ‘shellshock’). It portrays an inner change in his approach to war and it’s gruesome environment:

In both poems Owen shows us the physical effect of war, Wilfred starts the poems showcasing unendurable stress the men were going through. Appalling pictures are created and expressed through similes and metaphors. Owen’s lexical choices link to the semantic field of the archaic which conveys the atavistic effects of war. The men are compared to old beggars, hags, the once young men have been deprived of their youth and turned into old women, the loss of masculinity express the how exhausting and ruthless war was. The men were barely awake from lack of sleep, they “marched in sleep” their once smart uniforms resembling “sacks”. He also expresses how

The genre of the poem is war. In fact is very much propaganda against war. After the events of World War 1, Owen did not see the necessity of war in witnessing all the suffering it caused. The very title of the poem Dulce et Decorum est can be translated as ,"It is sweet and proper to die for the fatherland." It is now commonly referred to as the old lie because the saying is very old and commonly used but can not really be seen as true. Though the title is titled as such, the meaning of the poem actually argues against the phrase. In the poem, there is nothing fearless or glorious about the soldiers in the war. All of the language that was in the poem has a very negative connotation. The words used like, ”beggars”,”lame”,”blind”,”deaf”,”clumsy,”helpless”,and more show that the men are very discombobulated and are in fact suffering. There is a lot of death and chaos occurring. The phrase is referred to as the old lie because how can one see the horrors of war and still tell people and young children that it is honorable and glorious to fight and die for one’s country.

“Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poetic piece of art, written by Wilfred Owen. This poem utilizes imagery to capture war horrors seen through the soldier’s eyes. Owen ushers the reader into the poem with a title “Dulce et Decorum Est” whose translation is “it’s sweet and proper”. The author uses this title to communicate to the reader of the joy of serving ones country.

Two prominent themes in these texts consist of people being physically and/or psychologically affected by something, in these instances war and depression, and the writers trying to distinguish truth from fantasy. The first poem analysed is "Dulce et decorum est", written by Wilfred Owen in 1917, which highlights how physically and psychologically crippled World War One soldiers were during battle, and conveys how young men were mislead into believing that it is honourable to die for their country. The second poem analysed is "Life is an illusion", written by Trisha Ward, which chronicles how she was feeling while suffering from depression and Post-traumatic stress disorder. The poem also describes how she tried to seek guidance and make sense

How is war represented in the two poems? (WAR PHOTOGRAPHER AND Dulce Est decorum) In the poems War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy and Dulce Est Decorum by Wilfred Owen war is represented in many ways and very differently and vividly. Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright who was inspired to write this poem by her friendship with a war photographer in WW2. She was especially engaged by the Devastating challenge faced by people whose job requires them to record terrible, horrific events without being able to directly help their subjects.