Dulce et Decorum Est | Summary & Theme Analysis
Advertisement
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 towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstrippedFive-Ninesthat dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Poet
Wilfred Owen was born in Shropshire, England, in 1893 and studied at the University of Reading. Because he could not afford to continue his education, he left school and worked as an English-language tutor in France while also writing poetry. After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the loss of so many young lives horrified him. Nevertheless, after returning home in 1915, he enlisted in the Artist's Rifles of the British army, received a commission, and shipped out to France in late December 1916. Over the next several months, he wrote poetry to record his impressions of the war. In the spring of 1917, he exhibited symptoms of shell shock after experiencing the hell of trench warfare. He also contracted trench fever, a bacterial infection transmitted by lice. His superiors returned him to Britain, where he underwent treatment at a war hospital in Craiglockhart, Scotland, then a suburb of Edinburgh and now part of the city. While there, he continued to write poems, one of which was ―Dulce et Decorum Est.‖ An experienced poet who was also receiving treatment, Siegrfied Sassoon (1886-1967), helped him edit and polish his work. After his discharge from the hospital, Owen mingled with poets and wrote more poetry. His work by this time was showing great promise. Eventually, he returned to the army—and to war. He died in action in France just one week before the war ended (November 11, 1918). He was only twenty-five. However, his war poems, including ―Dulce et Decorum Est" and "Anthem‖ lived on and today remain as meaningful and relevant as when he wrote them.Summary
The Title and Final Sentence
Meter
The meter pattern of the poem is iambic pentameter, which consists of five pairs of syllables. The first syllable of each pair is unstressed; the second, stressed. The first two lines of the poem demonstrate the pattern. .......1................2................3...............4..................5 Bent DOU..|..ble, LIKE..|..old BEG..|..gars UN..|..der SACKS, ...........1......................2..................3......................4......................5 Knock- KNEED,..|..cough ING..|..like HAGS,..|..we CURSED..|..through SLUDGERhyme Scheme
The first line rhymes with the third, the second with the fourth, the third with the sixth, and so on.
Structure
The first stanza sets the scene, a battlefield with war-weary soldiers on the march. The second stanza centers on the central image of the poem: a gas attack in which one soldier, failing to put on his gas mask in time, dies in agony before the speaker of the poem. The remaining lines present the theme.Themes
WARFARE As Owen describes it, war becomes a never-ending nightmare of muddy trenches and unexpected gas attacks. Interestingly, with the new-fangled technology of WWI, there doesn't even need to be a real enemy present to create the devastation and destruction. Set in the middle of a gas attack, this poem explores the intense agony of a world gone suddenly insane – and the unfortunate men who have to struggle through it. As the poem itself asks, how can anyone condone so much suffering? SUFFERING Physical pain and psychological trauma blur in this searing description of a World War I battleground. Caught in the memory of a gas-attack, the poem's speaker oscillates between the pain of the past (the actual experience of battle) and the pain of the present (he can't get the image of his dying comrade out of his head). As Owen argues, war is so painful that it becomes surreal. PATRIOTISM In this poem, dying for your country (or even fighting for your country) seems a lot less worthwhile than the trumped-up truisms of old patriotic battle cries imply. Strategically drawing his readers through the ghastly reality of life in a battle zone, Owen turns patriotic fervor into a kind of deadly life force. The people at home just can't understand how horrible life on the front actually is. The soldiers in war can't remember why they are fighting. Everyone, it seems, is lost: lost in a fog of war or in the useless ideals that sacrifice youth at the altar of national glory.Figures of Speech
.......Following are examples of figures of speech in the poem.Alliteration
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. some smothering knock-kneed watching white eyes from the froth Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Hyperbole Men marched asleep Metaphor and Simile Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. Simile: Comparison of the mist of green gas to a sea Metaphor: Comparison of the gas victim to a victim of drowning Onomatopoeia hoot / gargling Simile Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge Comparison of a soldier's coughing to the coughing of a witchEN1215_British & American Literature_content credits to original creators_Uploaded by Nisal Wanigasuriaya
Advertisement
Save Complete Educational Notes as PDF
Download a clean, printer-friendly formatted PDF of this note for offline revision.
Share with Classmates & Study Groups:
Help fellow students
5.0 / 5.0
Found this study material helpful?
Rate our website service and free notes repository on Google Reviews!
Discussion & Study Inquiries (0)
Ask questions, request missing past papers, or share revision notes
No comments yet. Be the first student to start the discussion or request past papers!