Poetry Essay: Dulce Et Decorum Est

Poetry Essay: Dulce Et Decorum Est

Draft Copy

The title of Wilfred Owen's famous World War I poem, 'Dulce Et Decorum

Est', are the first words of a Latin saying which means, 'It is sweet

and Right'. The full saying, which ends the poem, 'Dulce et decorum

est // Pro patria mori', means it is sweet and right to die for one's

country. This was the saying that was commonly understood and used

widely in the propaganda at the beginning of the War. It made war out

to be honourable and heroic. Owen shows in this poem, by depicting the

horror and cruelty of the War, how far the common belief that war was

proud and honourable, was from the truth.

In the first stanza we are introduced to the setting of the poem as

well as to a few of the horrors of the war. The men are leaving the

battlefield and are moving to a place of rest when they are hit by gas

filled artillery shells. It gives a description of how fatigued and

weary the men were and how badly injured many of them were after

spending time in the trenches of the front lines. The image of

tiredness and sleep is introduced in the first stanza phrases such as

'Bent-double' (line 1), 'distant rest' (line 4) and 'Men marched

asleep' (line 5). The men are so tired they turn their backs on the

flares that are sent up to show the bombardiers where to shoot their

shells. Another image that Owen uses that appears in the first stanza

and is seen through out the poem is how there is a lack of

co-ordination and sense. This can be seen by 'Knock-kneed' (line 3),

'limped', 'lame' and 'blind' (line 6) and 'drunk' and 'deaf' (line7).

Owen shows how these men's senses had been numbed by the ghastly

occurrences in the trenches and how these numbed senses cause the men

to not realise they are under attack until it is almost too late.

The second stanza describes the dramatic reaction the men have when

they realise they have been attacked by gas. The ecstasy of fumbling -

shows how desperate the men where to find the odd fitting gas masks,

how a mask was the difference between a cruel death and life. Owen

compares the unlucky man to someone who has fallen in a fire or pile

of lime and is being engulfed by the pain. He is compared to a

drowning man; he is drowning in the gas, in the pain of death. The gas

is so thick that it takes on a liquid appearance.