Dulce et Decorum Est Flashcards
Main Themes
War, Nature vs Conflict, PTSD
Underlying Themes
Psychological and physical suffering, patriotism
Definition of Title
Sweet and Proper to die for ones country
Context Author
Name: Wilfred Owen
English poet and soldier of WW1
Died 2 weeks before the armistice was called
Started writing @20 a poem collection called ‘Minor poems’
Influences
Significant for technical experiments in assonance e.g. influential in 1930's Of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues Siegfried Sassoon (his commander) revolutionized his poems as he told him to write about the trenches
Poem Overview
Wrote about anger at cruelty and about how wasteful wat is and pity for its victims
Wilfred Other Pieces
Futility
Mental Cases
Arms and the Boys
Strange Meetings
Verse Form
Free Verse
- the idea that emotion changes the rhythm of the piece
- Lines overrun to show abundance of suffering
- 2 sonnets (first Petrarchan second English)
- -> First image of the soldier (octave then sestet)
- -> Second builds upon the dream
Metre
-Rhythm (stressed and unstressed beats) of the syllables in the line of a verse
Iambic Pentameter
- sound of soldier marching
- war is continuous
- cannot escape and everything ends in death
Stress
- harsh sound of ‘cud’
- sibilance ‘sick of sin’
- caesurial ‘like old beggars’
Volume
‘Gas’ show shock
‘if you could hear’ lower to imagine listening to the sound of the soldier dying
Pace
Panic of the gas attack
Pitch
Low at the end to convey a serious tone/message
Inflection
- What you stress to change meaning question vs statement
- ‘If in some smothering dreams you too could pace’ directing to audience
Tone colour
- gives off an emotion or feeling
- all description carries both the theme but tone of the piece
