Dulce Et Décorum Est Flashcards
Poet
Wilfred Owen
haunting flares
The adjective ‘haunting’ emphasises the nightmares of war the men would experience afterwards. The collective noun ‘flares’ has connotations of an SOS flare, sent up to indicate to others you need help. In this instance, the flares are the fires and blasts created by bombs, which contrasts with the use of an SOS flare. Ironically, they are in trouble, but no help will come.
Men marched asleep
Alliteration of the ‘m’ sound is used to produce the sound of a tired, trudging walk on the muddy ground. This metaphor emphasises the extreme tiredness of the soldiers –they were walking and were so tired, they were barely even awake or aware of what they were doing.
Under a green sea
This metaphor describes the way the gas smothers the field and the men in it. The assonance in ‘green’ and ‘sea’ elongates the vowel sound, which mimics the action of the men suffocating from the gas, as they slowly collapse on the ground and die.
He plunges at me, guttering, chocking, drowning
The asyndetic list that describes how the soldier is dying becomes more powerful and more horrific through the use of onomatopoeic words like ‘guttering’. Verb plunges - desperation
Froth-corrupted lungs
This violent image of death describes a soldier drowning in his own blood after breathing in the gas. The death is brutal and painful. The verb ‘corrupted’ shows how excruciating it is to die of gas poisoning, further emphasized by the fact that the poet is watching his comrades choke on their own blood. Here, Owen is trying to emphasise the dishonesty of war, and how the Soldiers were fed the lie of heroism and glory if they signed up to fight in the war. This also shows their innocence
Obscene as cancer
In this simile, Owen presents us with a short brutal comparison. Like cancer is a killer, so is war. The sight of the man’s blood is an obscenity; something which should not to be seen. The adjective ‘obscene’ emphasises that blood is as offensive to sight as is death, by drowning in poison gas.
To children ardent for some desperate glory
The poet speaks directly to his target audience when he says ‘To children’ – he wants to get his message across that there is no ‘glory’ in war. The adjective ‘desperate’ reflects the huge desire these boys had for going to war and returning heroes. Comparing this line to the first image of the soldiers as ‘beggars’ is a stark contrast to show the reality of war – it is not glorious as they had been led to believe.
Context
Wilfred Owen fought and died in the First World War and much of his poetry is about the horrors of that conflict. He uses personal experience to vividly depict the realities of war. Wilfred Owen is one of the most famous war poets. He was born in
1893 and died in 1918, just one week from the end of World War One. His poetry is characterised by powerful descriptions of the conditions faced by soldiers in the trenches.
Title
The Latin used at the end of the poem means ‘It is sweet and honourable to die for your country’, a concept Owen is strongly denying, saying it is an ‘old lie’.
Structure
The poem included 4 unequal stanzas (reflecting the unpredictability of
war), where the first two stanzas are in sonnet form, and the final two are much looser in structure.
Stanza 1 – sets the scene of a gruesome snapshot of war.
Stanza 2 – the scene develops and focuses on one soldier who could not get his gas mask on
