dulce et decorem est Flashcards
titel
- sweet and fitting
- sweet and fitting to die for your country
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
- despairing mood
- simile
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
- young start
- rough conditions
- exhausting
- frustration
- slow, muddy, tiring
- inclusive pronouns
- commas amplify rhythm of slow
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
- no energy to avoid
- lack of urgency
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
- tiring
- weariness
- fatalistic aspects
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
- lost
- exhausted
- rest is for away
- exhaustion caused sleep
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
- injured
- pain in honour
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
- metaphor
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
- moving away from danger
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
- rhythm change to fast
- urgency
- uncoordinated
- ## desperation
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.—
- drowning
- desperate attempt
- slowed down rhythm
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
- descriptive
- weary
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
- literal
- helpless
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
- unceasing
- PTSD
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
- reliving trauma
- desperation
- struggle
- description
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
- nightmares
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
- urgency
- dehumanisation
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
- graphic
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
- allusion to evil
- detestable war
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
-
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
- onomatopoeia
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
- suffering
- escape pain through death
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
- bitter tone
- unnecessary suffering
- change in though
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
- ironic
- said to those perpetuating the stereotype of greatness in war
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
- stereotype of honour in war
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
- exposure of lie
- not sweet of fitting
Pro patria mori.
- caustic tone
- scathing tone
structure
- abab rhyme scheme
- punctuation slows down and speed up rhythm
- exclamation marks emphasise urgency
