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A powerful anti-war poem that depicts the horrors of World War I from the perspective of a soldier. The poem quotes the Latin phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country) and exposes its irony and hypocrisy.
- Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen, who wrote some of the best British poetry on...
- Poetry Foundation
Dulce et Decorum Est. Audio Player. 00:00. 00:00. 00:00. Use...
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- Wilfred Owen
Learn about the themes, symbols, and poetic devices of Owen's famous poem, which depicts the horrors of World War I. The poem quotes Horace's "Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country" to expose the lie behind the glorification of war.
- Summary
- Analysis, Stanza by Stanza
- Historical Background
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There was no draft in the First World War for British soldiers; it was an entirely voluntary occupation, but the British needed soldiers to fight in the war. Therefore, through a well-tuned propagandamachine of posters and poems, the British war supporters pushed young and easily influenced youths into signing up to fight for the glory of England. ...
Stanza One
British soldiers would trudge from trench to trench, seeping further into France in pursuit of German soldiers. It was often a miserable, wet walk, and it is on one of these voyages that the poem opens. Immediately, it minimizes the war to a few paltry, exhausted soldiers, although it rages in the background (’till on the haunting flares we turned our backs / and towards our distant rest began to trudge’). Owen uses heavy words to describe their movement – words like ‘trudge’, and ‘limped’; t...
Stanza Two
The second stanza changes the pacerapidly. It opens with an exclamation – ‘Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!’ – and suddenly, the soldiers are in ‘an ecstasy of fumbling’, groping for their helmets to prevent the gas from taking them over. Again, Owen uses language economically here: he uses words that express speed, hurry, and almost frantic demand for their helmets. However, one soldier does not manage to fit his helmet on in time. Owen sees him ‘flound’ring like a man in fire or lime’ through the thi...
Stanza Three
For a brief two lines, Owen pulls back from the events happening throughout the poems to revisit his own psyche. He writes, ‘In all my dreams,/ before my helpless sight’, showing how these images live on with the soldiers, how these men are tortured by the events of war even after they have been removed from war. There is no evading or escaping war.
While at Craiglockhart, Owen became the editor of the hospital magazine The Hydra. Through it, he met the poet Siegfried Sassoon (read Sassoon’s poetry here), who later became his editor and one of the most important impacts on his life and work. Owen wrote a number of his poemsin Craiglockhart with Sassoon’s advice. After his death in 1918, aged 2...
Read and analyze the poem that challenges the romantic notions of war and exposes its horrors with graphic imagery and blood-curdling nuances. Learn about the historical background, the poetic form, the themes, and the emotions evoked by this masterpiece of First World War literature.
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- Poetry Analyst
A powerful anti-war poem that depicts the horrors of World War I from the perspective of a soldier. The poem challenges the idea of "sweet and fitting" to die for one's country (Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori) with graphic images of gas attacks, mutilation and death.
"Dulce et Decorum est" is a poem written by Wilfred Owen during World War I, and published posthumously in 1920. Its Latin title is from a verse written by the Roman poet Horace: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. In English, this means "it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country".
Mar 4, 2018 · Learn how Owen rejects the Roman poet Horace’s phrase ‘it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country’ in this famous anti-war poem. Explore the form, imagery, and irony of his description of a gas attack and its aftermath.
Dulce et Decorum Est Lyrics. Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs. And...
