An Analysis of Wilfred Owen's
The First World War began with the promise of glory and ended with the realization of the horrific reality of death and destruction. The poetry penned during this time, much of it by soldiers who served in and witnessed the war firsthand, provide a valuable insight to this progression. One significant poet was Wilfred Owen, who served under the British as an infantry lieutenant during the First World War, fought in the Battle of the Somme and was killed on November 4th 1918, a week before the Armistice. “Dulce et Decorum Est” is Owen’s description of the brutality of war as well as a rebuke against those who propagated and continued to propagate the hardships and casualties suffered as heroic and a patriotic duty to their country. This is exemplified by Owen’s use of vivid and descriptive language, the specific experiences he describes, and the bitter closing verse in which he directly addresses those he is rebuking with the charge of telling lies to glorify war to the youth.
To describe the horrors he faced during the Great War, Owen utilizes harsh and evocative language to cause a reaction from the reader. Owen initiates his poem by describing the state of the soldiers: “Bent double, like old beggars, under sacks, / Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge.” Placed in the beginning, the imagery is startling, as if trying to awaken the reader to the hardships faced by the soldiers. His diction is precise and vivid, creating imagery that the reader would find disconcerting, such as his expressions “white eyes writhing in his face” and “Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud” when describing a dead body. Owen does not allow the reader to question the reality he paints; the experiences of war are gruesome, and documented in the poem with a brutal honesty.
The diction lends itself to the bitter tone of the poem, aided by the experiences Owen describes. Owen places the reader in the midst of the battlefield, with the soldiers marching, exhausted and bootless, “All lame; all blind; / Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/ Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.” After outlining the exhaustion and demoralization of the army, Owen proceeds to describe a gas attack with the urgency that must have accompanied the real experience. There is “An ecstasy of fumbling” as the soldiers try to escape. However, there is a casualty, leading Owen to introduce the narrator and shift from describing the experience of the army as a whole, to describing the trauma experienced by an individual soldier. It provides a glance into the vulnerability of the men that served: “As under a green sea, I saw him drowning/ In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, /He lunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” Owen is not portraying the war as a whole, but rather a single day, a single incident and a single death that has repercussions for one individual among many in the form of recurring nightmares. Owen does not mention any sense of glory among these troops, or a patriotic sense of duty that brought them comfort. As Owen portrays it, war is a futile and bleak experience.
After Owen has outlined the conditions of war, the trauma and the repercussions on the individual, the tone becomes aggressive and bitter, rebuking those who supported the war without knowing the realities of the experience. He charges them with being dishonest, and ignorant. He places them in the position of the narrator, where he would “pace/Behind the wagon that we flung him in” before going on to describe the corpse with the aforementioned precise description. The purpose is to underline the difference in what the soldier experiences, and what those at home imagine when they preach tales of glory and duty to encourage enlistment. He concludes by stating the message of his poem: “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.” The Latin title and closing sentence were taken from the Roman poet Horace, and translates into English as “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.” The phrase would be familiar to Owen and his generation, which studied Latin. Furthermore, using Latin demonstrates how prominent the lie has been in history, as present in Roman times, as to the youth that enlisted during the First World War anticipating adventure and a quick return home.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen is an honest and vivid description of the traumas witnessed and suffered during the First World War as well as a rebuke against those who supported the war with ignorant and dishonest claims of glory. The poem’s vivid diction and imagery, the experiences outlined in the content and the final accusation of dishonesty given by Owen serve to emphasize that, contrary to the title, there is nothing sweet and fitting about dying in battle and no justification for blind support.
To describe the horrors he faced during the Great War, Owen utilizes harsh and evocative language to cause a reaction from the reader. Owen initiates his poem by describing the state of the soldiers: “Bent double, like old beggars, under sacks, / Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge.” Placed in the beginning, the imagery is startling, as if trying to awaken the reader to the hardships faced by the soldiers. His diction is precise and vivid, creating imagery that the reader would find disconcerting, such as his expressions “white eyes writhing in his face” and “Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud” when describing a dead body. Owen does not allow the reader to question the reality he paints; the experiences of war are gruesome, and documented in the poem with a brutal honesty.
The diction lends itself to the bitter tone of the poem, aided by the experiences Owen describes. Owen places the reader in the midst of the battlefield, with the soldiers marching, exhausted and bootless, “All lame; all blind; / Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/ Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.” After outlining the exhaustion and demoralization of the army, Owen proceeds to describe a gas attack with the urgency that must have accompanied the real experience. There is “An ecstasy of fumbling” as the soldiers try to escape. However, there is a casualty, leading Owen to introduce the narrator and shift from describing the experience of the army as a whole, to describing the trauma experienced by an individual soldier. It provides a glance into the vulnerability of the men that served: “As under a green sea, I saw him drowning/ In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, /He lunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” Owen is not portraying the war as a whole, but rather a single day, a single incident and a single death that has repercussions for one individual among many in the form of recurring nightmares. Owen does not mention any sense of glory among these troops, or a patriotic sense of duty that brought them comfort. As Owen portrays it, war is a futile and bleak experience.
After Owen has outlined the conditions of war, the trauma and the repercussions on the individual, the tone becomes aggressive and bitter, rebuking those who supported the war without knowing the realities of the experience. He charges them with being dishonest, and ignorant. He places them in the position of the narrator, where he would “pace/Behind the wagon that we flung him in” before going on to describe the corpse with the aforementioned precise description. The purpose is to underline the difference in what the soldier experiences, and what those at home imagine when they preach tales of glory and duty to encourage enlistment. He concludes by stating the message of his poem: “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.” The Latin title and closing sentence were taken from the Roman poet Horace, and translates into English as “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.” The phrase would be familiar to Owen and his generation, which studied Latin. Furthermore, using Latin demonstrates how prominent the lie has been in history, as present in Roman times, as to the youth that enlisted during the First World War anticipating adventure and a quick return home.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen is an honest and vivid description of the traumas witnessed and suffered during the First World War as well as a rebuke against those who supported the war with ignorant and dishonest claims of glory. The poem’s vivid diction and imagery, the experiences outlined in the content and the final accusation of dishonesty given by Owen serve to emphasize that, contrary to the title, there is nothing sweet and fitting about dying in battle and no justification for blind support.
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