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A note on war poetry
Mental and physical consequences of war for soldiers
An article on wilfred owen's dulce et decorum est
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“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen takes its title from the Latin phrase that means “It is sweet and becoming to die for one’s country”. Quite often the barbaric nature of war is over romanticized and the author uses this title satirically to mock the public’s deluded view of war. The poem graphically describes the hell soldiers have to endure in their everyday battle for survival. These are tragedies of war that only veterans can fully understand and Wilfred Owen tries to enlighten the general public of these tragedies through imagery and similes throughout his poem. The speaker lets the reader know right away about the reality of war. The invincible, fearless soldiers that are envisioned by the reader are quickly transformed into weary, fear-stricken boys. As the soldiers were marching back from the battlefield they are described as “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks” (line 1). This shows that the soldiers in the poem are burdened mentally and physically by the weight of the terrors of war and are so tired they are comparable to beggars. “Knock-kneed, coughing like h...
“Dulce Et Decorum Est” is a World War One poem written by Wilfred Owen, to express the dreadfulness of war and that no glory awaits men.
The Poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” attempts to make war seem as repulsive as possible. The author’s goal is to discourage people from joining the war or any future conflicts by shattering the romantic image people have of the fighting. The setting of this poem helps
“Dulce Et Decorum Est” is made up of grotesque diction scattered all across the poem to illustrate the conditions in which soldiers try to retain their humanities both physical and psychological, whereas “Suicide in the Trenches” offers little description of the horrendous physical aspects of war. Right from the get-go, Owen jumps into the brutality of war as he recalls, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,” (Owen). His use of words like beggars, knock-kneed, and ha...
All exceptional poetry displays a good use of figurative language, imagery, and diction. Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" is a powerful antiwar poem which takes place on a battlefield during World War I. Through dramatic use of imagery, metaphors, and diction, he clearly states his theme that war is terrible and horrific.
The speaker chooses words such as “bent double, like old baggers” and “knock-kneed” (Owens 1-2) to expose the discomfort and effects that war has on young soldiers. The soldiers are discreetly compared to crippled old men, which emphasizes just how badly war has affected their bodies, stripping them of their health, making them weak and helpless like “old beggars” (Owen 1). Furthermore, the speaker expresses his experience as a soldier when he says, “Men marched asleep [.]/ Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind” (Owen 5, 7-8).... ... middle of paper ...
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.
Wilfred Owen is a tired soldier on the front line during World War I. In the first stanza of Dulce Et Decorum Est he describes the men and the condition they are in and through his language shows that the soldiers deplore the conditions. Owen then moves on to tell us how even in their weak human state the soldiers march on, until the enemy fire gas shells at them. This sudden situation causes the soldiers to hurriedly put their gas masks on, but one soldier did not put it on in time. Owen tells us the condition the soldier is in, and how, even in the time to come he could not forget the images that it left him with. In the last stanza he tells the readers that if we had seen what he had seen then we would never encourage the next generation to fight in a war.
Owen as a young soldier held the same romantic view on war as majority of the other naive soldiers who thought that war would be an exciting adventure. The documentary extract illustrates how markedly Owen’s perspective of the war changed, as noted in a letter to his mother while he was still in the front lines: “But extra for me, there is the universal perversion of ugliness, the distortion of the dead ... that is what saps the soldierly spirit.” In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, Owen’s change of heart is evident through the irony of the poem title and the ending line “The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est, Pro patria mori.”, an allusion to the Roman axiom made famous by Horace, which translates to “The old Lie; It is sweet and right to die for your country.”. The line depicts Owen’s realisation that the horrific nature of war through human conflict is not sweet and right at all, rather, it is appalling and “bitter as the cud” as death is always present on the battlefield. Additionally, Owen indirectly responds to Jessie Pope’s poetry, a pro-war poetess, through the reference “My friend, you would not tell with such high zest… The old lie…”, further highlighting his changed perspective towards the war which has been influenced
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.
Sassoon shows many examples of how the soldier in this poem gets pulled back into war-like terrors by meaningless things. The soldier is simply sitting in his home yet gets flashbacks of war and it haunts him. In this poem Sassoon is using a soldier as the example of repression as someone who has experienced war and the impacts it has on life after. “The poetic evolution related directly to Sassoon 's war experiences was initially gradual. His poetry became more serious and evocative in the early days of the war, but continued to inhabit the fatal logic of soldierly glory in poetic uniform” Avi Matalon claims (30). Poetry was influenced greatly by World War I and left poets creating new pieces that they never would have imagined
“In what ways does the poet draw you into the world of poetry? Detailed reference to 2 poems”
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.
The poem "Dulce et Decorum est" was written by Wilfred Owen during World War One, and is probably the most popular war-poem ever written.The title is part of the Latin phrase 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' which means 'It is sweet and right to die for your country'. Wilfred Owen saw the war first-hand and this poem is about a gas attack that he witnessed. Throughout this poem Owen gives the sense of anger and injustice through the use of many different poetic techniques.
The poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen portrays the horrors of World War I with the horrific imagery and the startling use of words he uses. He describes his experience of a gas attack where he lost a member of his squadron and the lasting impact it had on him. He describes how terrible the conditions were for the soldiers and just how bad it was. By doing this he is trying to help stop other soldiers from experiencing what happened in a shortage of time.
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.