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Dulce Et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen was a British poet who served as a soldier in WWI. His poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" describes the horrors of a gas attack he witnessed. It depicts exhausted soldiers stumbling back from the front lines when they come upon a man struggling to put on his gas mask as poison gas envelops him. The man dies a painful death which Owen can never forget. Through vivid imagery and Latin references, Owen powerfully condemns the propaganda that led young men to see war as an noble endeavor.

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312 views15 pages

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen was a British poet who served as a soldier in WWI. His poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" describes the horrors of a gas attack he witnessed. It depicts exhausted soldiers stumbling back from the front lines when they come upon a man struggling to put on his gas mask as poison gas envelops him. The man dies a painful death which Owen can never forget. Through vivid imagery and Latin references, Owen powerfully condemns the propaganda that led young men to see war as an noble endeavor.

Uploaded by

balanvbalan
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Dulce et

Decorum Est
By: Wilfred Owen

Authors Biography
Owen was born on March 18,
1893.
On October 21st, 1915 he
enlisted himself to become a
soldier due to peer pressure.
He served in the British army
during WWI.
He was an English poet.
Owen is considered one of
the top WWI poets.

His poem was based on his


personal experiences as a
soldier.
After two traumatic events
Owen met Siegfried Sassoon
who had an incredible impact
in his life & inspired him to
develop his war poetry.
Owen was shot trying to cross
a canal on Nov. 4th 1918 near
the village of Ors & this event
defined his death.

Wilfred
Owen
Grave

Siegfried
Sassoon
Place of death

Poem Structure

The ballade is made up of 3


stanzas of 8 lines with the rhyme
scheme ABABBCBC, and a final 4line envoy with the scheme BCBC.

Owen uses more rhymes than


this, and breaks up his stanzas
irregularly into 8, 6, 2, and 10
lines plus a couplet.

This poem can be understood as two sonnets


though the spacing is irregular.

The poem is similar to the French ballade


form, the poem consists of 28 lines which is
the number of lines used in the French
ballade structure.

Owens objective is to show the


horror and the reality of war,
which in this case is the First
World War.

The tone of the poem is very


harsh due to the choice of words
and how they are used.

The title is a partial quotation from the


longer Dulce et decorum est pro patria
mori" which can be translated to it is sweet
and right to die for your native land.
The title is in the Latin words taken from an
ode by Horace. (poet of Ancient Rome, 65-8
BC)

Ballade is a form of medieval and


Renaissance French poetry.
(not to be confused with ballad)

Poem Diction
For example words that show
ugliness, fear, and pain:

coughing like hags


cursed through sludge
limped on, blood-shod,
floundering like a man in
fire or lime
guttering, choking,
drowning
white eyes writhing
blood come gargling from
the froth-corrupted lungs
vile, incurable sores

Words that show his own


feelings & contrasts it the
way war has been
presented:
vile
bitter
cursed
obscene
Ecstasy
Knock-kneed, coughing
like hags, we cursed
through sludge

Vocabulary

hags female like witch figures

cursed through sludge- a battle


field of mud, explains how hard it
was to move through the
battlefield

limped on, blood-shod-covered


in blood

blood come gargling from the frothcorrupted lungs


- corrupted can be argued that the
young men were corrupted into
fighting in the war and killing others.

obscene- disgusting to the senses.

bitter unpleasant.

vile bad.

floundering like a man in fire or


lime - lime is a white chalky
substance which can burn live
tissue.

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags,


we cursed through sludge
- referring to old people, and it was
difficult to move through the mud.

guttering, choking, drowningforms of pain.

Ecstasy - a state of being beyond


reason and self-control.

cursed - to afflict with great evil

Poetic Devices
A commonly used phrase, is bent At the start of the poem, the soldiers are
approached to old, crippled ugly beings:
double & is an example of a
Bent double, like old beggars under
hyperbole.
sacks, / Knock-kneed, coughing like hags.
Poetic form serves to symbolize
the breakdown of the society's
value system.
Enjambments in lines
3,5,7,17,21,23,26, and 28.
Metaphor: drunk with fatigue
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys! creates
an impression of urgency and
panic.

Simile: Dim, through the misty panes and


thick green light, As under a green sea, I
saw him drowning.
-The thick greenish glass of the gas mask,
and the greenish fumes of the gas make
the narrator feel that he was viewing an
underwater scene.
Another use of simile: like a man in fire or
lime
-Expresses the burning and the pain
caused by the mustard gas when it comes
into contact with their skin, eyes and
mucous membranes.

More Similes
His hanging face, like a
devil's sick of sin
- If a devil becomes sick of sin,
he is questioning everything
that has been seen as value,
and realizes his whole life has
been for nothing, perhaps
Owen is implying that in the
same way, the dying soldier is
questioning everything he has
been told about the
sweetness of dying for a
cause.

"bitter as the cud" imitate


"those who die as cattle",
words used by Owen in his
poem Anthem for Doomed
Youth.
- The soldiers are being led to
slaughter like helpless
animals, where the dying
soldier is being treated more
like an animal carcass than
like a human being, not from
cruelty, but because nothing
else could have been done in
that situation.

This picture shows how hard it


was to move through the
battlefield due to the mud.

Gas
Mask

Trenches

Alliteration

Knock-kneed, coughing
like hags, we cursed
through sludge
Men marched asleep.
Many had lost their boots
And watch the white eyes
writhing in his face
- The use of alliteration
adds to the insistent tone
of the poem.

Owen is saying, Hey!


Look! I want you to look at
this and remember!
- He says this so that it is
impossible to turn away
and think of other things.

Groups of Imagery

A tiredness, sleep, dreams, a


nightmare world: Men
marched asleep, Drunk with
fatigue, In all my dreams,
If in some smothering
dreams, Owen apparently
suffered from nightmares,
perhaps as a result of shellshock.
C loss of coordination: Bent
double, Knock kneed,
Drunk with fatigue,
fumbling,
clumsystumbling,
floundering, writhing

B the sea and drowning:


Dim, through the misty
panes and thick green light /
As under a green sea, I saw
him drowning. He plunges
at me, guttering, choking,
drowning., gargling from the
froth-corrupted lungs
D loss of the ability to use
the senses, or a denial of the
senses: turned our backs,
marched asleep, all blind,
deaf even to the hoots, my
helpless sight

Analysis
Dulce et Decorum Est is a poem written by English poet and World
War I soldier Wilfred Owen in 1917, and was published posthumously
in 1920. From 1913 to 1915 he worked as a language tutor in France.
He felt pressured by the propaganda to become a soldier and
volunteered on 21st October 1915. He spent the last day of 1916 in a
tent in France joining the Second Manchester's. During war he was
blown up, concussed and suffered shell-shock. On 4th November he
was shot and killed near the village of Ors. He is known to be the
greatest war poet who had written in the English language. Owen's
poem is known for the condemnation of war. His poem was the best
known poem of the First World War. Lines 1 and 2 Owen talks about
how they are like old beggars and are coughing like hags he is
saying that they feel old and since they are soldiers that are young
and fit, for Owen to describe them in those terms must have meant
that they were really tired. In lines 3 and 4 the soldiers turned away
from the lights and noise of the war and headed back in the direction
of their camp. In line 4 he used trudge to emphasize that it was
really difficult moving because of the mud like if it had rained. Line 5
he explains how they are so tired they are barley conscious enough to
walk.

Continued..
In the second stanza he indicates that there had been shells which had
landed near them , didnt explode but started letting out poison gas,
which happened to be mustard gas and also describes how one man
wasnt able to get his mask on before he started to inhale the
poisonous gas, he writes how he saw the man suffering as if he couldnt
swim and started gulping in water, and eventually drowning. In lines 15
and 16 he is half talking about the present, and half about the his past.
He is remembering the man who died slowly and painfully in front of
him, and also his post-traumatic flashbacks to this moment. In lines 17
and 18 he is saying that no one can actually try to understand how they
felt, it was one of those moment were you just had to be there, the best
someone can do is experience the nightmare at a distance. Line 19 is a
use of alliteration and assonance with the w and I sounds. The line
like a devils sick of sin is kind of twisting because if the devil lives to
sin, saying he is sick of it is saying that there is no longer a purpose for
his existence. In the last 4 lines Owen is calling out propaganda artists,
and poets that urged people into war, in particular Owen Seaman who
wrote Pro patria, explaining that before the war young men had the
anticipation of excitement for the first battle, the shock of the WWI was
how miserable war and death really was, which is referring to The old
Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. Perhaps then the mustard

gas can be seen as a reflection of the poison of the war itself.

Quiz
1. When was the Owen born?
2. Who made a great impact in Owens
life?
3. Which war is his poem based on?
4. What does the poem title translate to?
a) Its sweet and wrong..
b) Its sweet and right..
c) Its sweet and dark..
d) Its sweet and harsh..
5. What kind of tone does this poem
have? Why?
6. How many stanzas does this poem
have?

7. In the begging of the poem who are the


soldiers being compared to?
8. How many guys were affected in the
poem by the poisonous gas used in the
war?
a) 1
b) 2
c) 3
9. What kind of gas was exposed to the
soldiers?
a) chlorine gas
b) gasoline
c) body gas
d) none of the above
10. Provide one simile from the poem.

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