Dulce Et Decorum Est Flashcards
Where was this poem written and what does it tell us about the writer and why and when he has written this poem
In Craig Lockhart Hospital under the guidance of Siegfried sasson. It was written in 1917 and tells a story about a gas attack that Wilfred Owen would have endured himself in France 1917 earlier on in the year and as the result of the attack, he and the others suffered from shell shock and was in hospital from his injuries.
Background of the poem
Wilfred Owen wrote this poem as a response to the pro war petty that was popular before and during ww1. He wanted people to read about the realities of war and to realiser that it was not a noble and exciting game full of opportunities for honour and glory. Wilfred Owen was killed in action just one week before ww1 ended at the age of 25.
The title of the poem is a reference to
A line from the classical Roman writer /poet Horace in Latin meaning it is beautiful and proper or it is sweet and proper. The whole line is reproduced at the end of the poem saying it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country /native land so this would have been a toast (given by the aristocracy and the higher class, echolens in society and those who support the war but don’t actually go to the war themselves getting rich of the war) , at the time of Wilfred Owen’s writing in the early 20th century that people would have said it is sweet to die for one’s country, it is sweeter to live for one’s country and is the sweetest to drink for one’s country so let’s drink to one’s country
Rhyme scheme of the poem
Ababcdcd-first stanza(Wilfred wanted to write corrupted sonnet put together)
Efefge- second stanza
Ge-third stanza
Hihijkjklmlm-fourth stanza
Line 1- like old beggars under sacks
Simile and has been describinh and explaining that things are going bad for the soldiers
Knock kneed
Nasal alliteration (repetition of constant sounds in close proximity -kk )
Line 2 coughing like hags
Simile
Line 2 coughing like hags
Simile
Line 2 coughing like hags
Simile
We cursed through sludge figurative language
This is in first person and never do the soldiers walk, the words : sludge, trudge, marched and limped in the first stanza are used to explain the intense movement of the soldiers. These words are synonyms for walk btw.
The :we cursed through sludge is the figurative language used to describe the journey foward.
We turned our backs
Symbolic significance there that they are rejecting the war, turning their backs of the fighting and that they don’t want to be part of the war.
Haunting flares
Plausible that the flares actually do haunt the soldiers and that there’s a sense of personification.
Our distant rest
Euphemism, it’s both their literal rest away from the battlefield but also their distant wrestlers in their eventual deaths, their eventual demise and escape from this earthly realm and that they don’t know when they are going to die.
Men, marched and many
Nasal Alliteration
Blood-shod
Neologism, that’s the creation of a new word - meaning that their shoe is made out of blood, this gives us a visceral imagery through that neologism.
Blood-shod
Neologism, that’s the creation of a new word - meaning that their shoe is made out of blood, this gives us a visceral imagery through that neologism.
All in line 6
Repetition and this absolute diction gives a sense that Noone is able to escape from the horrors of the war.
Gas gas quick boys
Direct speech. The repetition of gas, the capitalism mark and the word boys used to describe/connotates the innocent and youthful soldiers instead of using the word men.
Ecstasy
Here is being used as a collective noun for fumbling and the irony of ecstasy is usually used to describe the state of extreme happiness being something so brilliant and so wonderful and feeling pleasure and in this poem is used to describe the intense awfulness
Clumsy helmets
Personification as if it’s something living and extension of these young men
Disjunction
We are told that we’ve made it just in time but there’s a disjunction of but there’s still someone yelling out and stumbling and floundering…like a man in fire or lime describing this individual that he may as well be in fire🏃🏾♀️ /quicklime(peeling off) 🎤
Disjunction
We are told that we’ve made it just in time but there’s a disjunction of but there’s still someone yelling out and stumbling and floundering…like a man in fire or lime describing this individual that he may as well be in fire🏃🏾♀️ /quicklime(peeling off) 🎤
Disjunction
We are told that we’ve made it just in time but there’s a disjunction of but there’s still someone yelling out and stumbling and floundering…like a man in fire or lime describing this individual that he may as well be in fire🏃🏾♀️ /quicklime(peeling off) 🎤
Drunk with fatigue
Extremely tired
Green
The repetition of the word green used to describe that chlorine gas was green but we see him as under the green sea and green sea and thick green light are both metaphoric as they are used to compare the gas to the the sea/light. He’s stuck within the chlorine granting gas and the idea is continued with the idea of him drowning and notably we shift from first person plural (we) to the first person singular and it becomes a personal recount of what’s happened on this march.
Guttering, choking and drowning
Trigology
Some and smothering
Alliteration
Flung in we flung him in
Particularly evocative and creating this image and having these connotations of carelessness.
And we and wagon are alliteration and well as watch and white. (creating a dizziness tone)
Eyes writhing in his face
Evocative image of what would have been happening literally his hanging face and how terrible his face looked.
Like a devil’s sick of sin
Simile.
The imagery of a devil’s dick of sin suggests a gruesome, twisted, and sinful image. It conveys a sense of evil, corruption, and immorality. The comparison to a devil implies a malevolent and malicious character, while the word “sin” further adds to the concept of wrongdoing and wickedness. Overall, this line evokes disturbing and unsettling imagery, highlighting the horrors of war and the dehumanizing effects it can have on individuals.
Gargling and froth corrupted lungs
Auditory imagery
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Simile
Incurable sores on innocent tongues
Metaphor (that’s how bitter it is)
Line 21 to 23
The man is dying from the gas attack
My friend
We go from the direct address of you to a more intimate (my friend) to talk to the reader to make it relatable perhaps a touch of irony of we are not really a friend of theirs and perhaps we are telling the children that it is good and proper to die for one’s native land.
Children
We have an imagery of innocence from earlier when we had the boys at the gas attack:gas, gas, quick boys
Ardent
Enthusiasm
The old Lie
Lie being personified through that Capitalization which is something pervasive and sick that’s going to have a quite strong impact on those who hear it and finally a line from Horace coming from tales that would have been told as they are learning their Latin, declensions and conjugation and so they are learning this message that it is sweet and proper to die for one’s country
First stanza
Owner sets the scene of soldiers trudging wearily back to to camp to get brief rest from the horrors of the front line. The soldiers, although they are young are ‘bend double, like old beggars under sscms/knock kneed, coughing like hags’. This image is in sharp contrast to what many people at the time would have associated with fighting men. There is neither glory or glamours in Owen’s description :some soldiers are barefoot, exhausted and lame as they stumble towards their ‘distant rest’. Behind them, shells fall but the men are deaf to the sound to focus on getting back to the camp
Second stanza
In the second stanza they are awoken, but it is to a living nightmare. The soldiers are attacked
with poison gas and they suddenly spring into action. The capital letters and the exclamation
marks add to the sense of urgency: ‘Gas! GAS!’. The use of internal rhyme in this stanza:
‘fumbling’, ‘clumsy’ and ‘stumbling’ focuses our attention on the men’s awkward
movements. In their desperate haste to put on the gas masks, the men are clumsy. In this
‘ecstasy of fumbling’ one soldier does not get his mask on in time. Helplessly, Owen watches
as the man stumbles and chokes on the poison gas. Owen is watching through the glass
eyepiece of his own gas mask and it appears to him as if the other man is drowning ‘under a
green sea’. This simile, in which Owen compares the clouds of green gas to a green sea, is a
powerful one
Third stanza
The dreamlike, unreal quality of the last stanza is continued here when Owen tells us that his
dreams are haunted by the image of the dying man he could not save.
Fourth stanza
The imagery in the fourth stanza is chilling and horrific. The dying man is ‘flung’ into a
wagon as he can no longer walk. The word ‘flung’ shows how cheap life has become and how
there is no dignity afforded to the dying. This is understandable, of course, as the soldiers can
do next to nothing to help their comrade. He is just another victim of the senseless waste of
life that marked WorldWar One. There is little time for compassion.
Fourth stanza continued
As Owen paces behind the wagon, he sees the soldier’s death. The man is writhing in agony,
and every jolt of the wagon brings blood bubbling up from his ruined lungs. Owen addresses
the reader directly in this stanza, saying that if those who read his words could see the
appalling reality of war, they would not be so quick to tell children ‘the old Lie’ that dying for
your country is a sweet and noble end. There is nothing sweet or right about a man choking
slowly to death in the back of a wagon.
in all my dreams
that absolute diction again gives a sense of time and distance from what’s being experienced as if things have gone on after this march and that the persona is remembering these things a long time afterwards
the fact that the sight is helpless
we could argue that this is an example of the personification
plunges at me
plosive piece that’s powerful and creates an arresting image. Now we go forward from recounting what’s happened on the march to the persona directly addressing the reader of the poem and we get that through the second person address.
dulce et decorum est
latin phrase that means it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country
the poem highlights
war; death and patriotism
irony in the title
he poet challenges the idea of whether it is sweet an fitting to die for one’s country;he thinks of the opposite
bent double like beggars under sacks
describes the movement of the soldiers in the trenches; they are crouching and crawling. beggars under sacks has2 meanings: not only are they carrying large sacks but that they are also tired from the big responsibility and consequences of war;the soldiers are exhausted from the kit supplies that they carry ,its heavy and they are tired that they are moving like old men and the war has made them poor;they are unable to enjoy the pleasures and richnesses bc they are stck dying and fighting like animals. the soldiers youth is stolen from them so they are old men
cursed through sludge , what device
cacophony; a noisy line with thick heavy sounds;sounds like cursing and gives us the imgade of how difficult the sludge is
