A Comparison of Dulce Et Decorum Est and Exposure
Traditional war poetry gives the idea of patriotic idealism
of war. This style of poetry implies that war is patriotic
and that people who fight for their country are honorable.
But many of the poets do not portray war as it really is, by
glossing over the gory details with attractive images. Many
traditional war poems were written before the war to persuade
and encourage young boys to become loyal soldiers. Many of
the soldiers were taught to believe that they were the
chosen few and they were delighted to take part. They even
thanked God, ‘Now, God be thanked, Who had matched us with
His hour’. The capital ‘H’ on ‘His’ implies the importance;
meaning that ‘His hour’ is God’s war. This makes the
soldiers even more delighted and thankful. And the worst
occurrence would be death. But as it says in ‘The Soldier’
by Rupert Brooke, death doesn’t last long and everybody shall
die at one point, so why not die honorably for your
country?
Owen and many other ww1 poets were a contrast to traditional
poems. They wrote about war realistically. They wrote from
personal experience. They include horrific details of death
and injury. They also criticized those who were running the
war.
Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 into a middle-class family. His
family came under financial difficulties and his education was
stunted. Nether the less his ability of poetry writing grew
fuelled by his reading of romantics. In his twenties he went
through life going from one badly paid job to another.
During this time he had little spare time to concentrate on
writing poetry. In August 1914 Wilfred Owen found himself
with a stable job as a private tutor of a French family in
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personal, first hand experiences of the war. Owen met
Sassoon at Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh. The two
men worked together to write ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, this
partnership worked particularly well as both men had
experiences of war and could express themselves in their
poems.
Although ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and ‘Exposure’ are different
poems, they have their similarities. They are both written
by a man who was awarded the Military Cross for bravery at
Amiens, they both have the same theme (war and the effects,
both short term and long term) and both are superbly
written. Wilfred Owen experienced the terrors of war first
hand and filtered his experiences into his work. That is
why ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and ‘Exposure’ are such
wonderful, emotive and interesting poems. Their writer had
first hand experience of the horrors of warfare.
all young people may think it is a honour to die for your country, but
On the first read-through of Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est it seems to just be a poem describing a soldiers experience in World War I, but there is much more to the story than that. Through the use of several literary techniques, Owen is able to vividly describe the speaker’s experiences and at the same time make them relatable to the people reading the poem. He also is able to criticize the people who he thinks are at least partly responsible for “tricking” a younger, more gullible him into the situation in the first place.
Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” and E. E Cummings’, “next to of course god america i” are poems that critique patriotic propaganda. Both poems use words and images to effectively depict the influence that patriotic propaganda has on war. “Dulce et Decorum Est” uses descriptive words to create realistic images of the horrors soldiers are faced with during combat, whereas “next to of course god america i” uses sarcasm to inform readers that the abuse of propaganda can be used to manipulate others. The attitudes they convey are quite similar; both suggest that propaganda is a lie; it is not sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.
To summarize, Owen uses numerous literary techniques to illustrate his firsthand experience of World War One, and communicates his opinions with a distinguished use of metaphors, similes, personifications, themes, imagery and irony. Owen recognized that the high casualties and unnecessary deaths in World War One were all in fact a metaphor for all death in modern warfare; the well known ‘glory’ of dying for one’s country was simply a lie. Thanks to this, he was successful in making people realize that “The old lie: Dulce Et Decorum Est, Pro Patria Mori”, ‘It is sweet and right to die for one’s country’ is a terrible misunderstanding, and the poem it depicts an irony of death on the modern battlefield. No matter how noble the reasons may be, nothing but misery, heartbreak and agony can come from war.
World War One had an inevitable effect on the lives of many young and naive individuals, including Wilfred Owen, who, like many others, joined the military effort with the belief that he would find honour, wealth and adventure. The optimism which Owen initially had toward the conflict is emphasised in the excerpt, in which he is described as “a young poet…with a romantic view of war common among the young” (narrator), a view which rapidly changed upon reaching the front. Owen presents responders with an overwhelming exploration of human cruelty on other individuals through acts of war and the clash of individual’s opposed feelings influenced by the experiences of human cruelty. This is presented through the horrific nature of war which the
Human conflict is a violent confrontation between groups of people due to differences in values and beliefs. During World War I, poet and soldier, Wilfred Owen, faced the harsh realities of human conflict, dying at a young age of 25, only six days before the war ended. Owen’s personal encounters during war had a profound influence on his life as reflected in the poems and letters he wrote before his passing. In using a variety of poetic devices to write about the suffering and brutality of war, vividly captured in his poems ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, Owen effectively conveys his own perspective about human conflict. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ depicts the horrific scenes on the battlefield and a grotesque death from drowning
Nudity: a controversial topic from the beginning of time. It has raised questions such as: Should girls have to cover their shoulders when in the classroom? What is the appropriate length for a pair of shorts? And one of the more famous campaigns should women be allowed to “free the nipple.” Recently nudity has been used by celebrities to show support for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. This is a controversy because some people believe that a woman using her body as a sexual image promotes the idea that others also have the right to view and support the idea that women are sexualized objects. In this article “Katy Perry’s naked vote reveals more than she wanted” written by Barbra Ellen explores this controversial topic by using many rhetorical devices.
Wilfred Owen was of a lower middle class background, he was the son of a railway worker who was the superintendent; he attended Shrewsbury Technical High School he had applied to go to the University Of London but was rejected. He worked as a lay preacher in his locality attending to the spiritual needs of the parishioners. He travelled to France to work as an English teacher within a French language school.
It is evident that the socio-cultural context in which Wilfred Owen operated had a powerful impact upon his poetic motivation and the messages he conveyed through his work. Before exploring Wilfred Owen’s work we first must understand the society that Wilfred Owen lived in, to be able to really understand appreciate his poems and their impact on society. At the time in which he operated, Britain’s public opinion on warfare and conflicts were astonishingly positive, especially in the early stages of WW1. These false perception on war led the vast majority of male citizens to perceive war recruitment as an opportunity to set off on ‘terrific adventures’ and earn immense amounts of honour for their families and nation. Government propaganda meant that soldiers believed that they were gathering fame and fortune in the name of Great Britain. This cruel and false perception of warfare which in turn led to a steady rate of volunteers for the war and included Wilfred Owen himself. The men who did not go and fight for their nations were perceived by society as cowards as
History is an important to today’s modern society because it shows the attitudes and culture of that society and shows patterns of society that can teach us how to avoid such things as genocide and war. The piece that will be adapted in this essay is Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen which will be adapted into a movie. There will have to be some changes to the poem to the length of the plot and setting up the beginning of the story. The movie will also have to keep with the overall theme of the story that war is grim and the effect that war has on soldiers. With an adaptation to a new medium, aspects of the poem could be lost or strengthen. The visuals would be strengthened because the poem has descriptive imagery and the movie would be able to stress the imagery. But with a change to a movie the overall message could be lost because of the way that people would perceive the movie, if they just watch to see World War one in action then they will miss the message about war. The reason why this piece is interesting to adapt because of the message that Wilfred Owen had that war is horrible and the façade of the leaders of war.
To draw into the poet’s world, the poet must draw relations between them, including the reader, making them feel what the poet feels, thinking what the poet thinks. Wilfred Owen does this very creatively and very effectively, in both of his poems, Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori and Anthem of Doomed Youth, who is seen as an idol to many people today, as a great war poet, who expresses his ideas that makes the reader feel involved in the moment, feeling everything that he does. His poems describe the horror of war, and the consequences of it, which is not beneficial for either side. He feels sorrow and anger towards the war and its victims, making the reader also feel the same.
Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” makes the reader acutely aware of the impact of war. The speaker’s experiences with war are vivid and terrible. Through the themes of the poem, his language choices, and contrasting the pleasant title preceding the disturbing content of the poem, he brings attention to his views on war while during the midst of one himself. Owen uses symbolism in form and language to illustrate the horrors the speaker and his comrades go through; and the way he describes the soldiers, as though they are distorted and damaged, parallels how the speaker’s mind is violated and haunted by war.
Wilfred Owen can be considered as one of the finest war poets of all times. His war poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, use a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathise with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. The sonnet form, para-rhymes, ironic titles, voice, and various imagery used by Owen grasp the prominent central idea of the complete futility of war as well as explore underlying themes such as the massive waste of young lives, the horrors of war, the hopelessness of war and the loss of religion. These can be seen in the three poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and ‘The Last Laugh’, in which this essay will look into.
Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen Owen's poem Dulce et Decorum Est is a passionate expression of outrage at the horrors of war and of pity for the young soldiers sacrificed in it. From the title of this poem people back home would have expected an understanding poem, helping to overcome their grief at the loss of a loved one, instead what they got was a poem expressing outrage at the lies surrounding the ‘Great’ War. The quote by Horace translates as ‘It is sweet and right to die for ones’ country’, but the poem is about proving to people at home that this isn’t a sweet and honourable way to die (if there is any).
Wilfred Owen wrote about the distilled pity of war from his first-hand experience. Owen concisely features the carnage and destruction of war in both the poems, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Strange Meeting’ Owen uses these poems document the psychological and physical debilitation of war. In ‘Dulce et Decorum est’, Owen uses a various amount of literary techniques to visually depict the cruel and grotesque death from the mustard gas whereas ‘Strange Meeting’, portrays the speaker in conversation with a dead soldier that he is presumably responsible for killing, symbolically which emphasises the effect of the wartime trauma. Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively highlights the carnage and destruction of war to educate the audience on the disillusionment of war.