A poem which I have recently read is: “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen. The main point Wilfred Owen tries to convey in this poem is the sheer horror of war. Owen uses many techniques to show his feelings, some of which I’ll be exploring.
Wilfred Owen is a tired soldier on the front line during World War I. In the first stanza of Dulce Et Decorum Est he describes the men and the condition they are in and through his language shows that the soldiers deplore the conditions. Owen then moves on to tell us how even in their weak human state the soldiers march on, until the enemy fire gas shells at them. This sudden situation causes the soldiers to hurriedly put their gas masks on, but one soldier did not put it on in time. Owen tells us the condition the soldier is in, and how, even in the time to come he could not forget the images that it left him with. In the last stanza he tells the readers that if we had seen what he had seen then we would never encourage the next generation to fight in a war.
Owen uses imagery constantly to convey the conditions and feelings experienced during this war. Firstly I will be exploring Metaphor as it is used so much in this poem. The first metaphor which I will examine is: “Haunting Flares” on line 3 of the first stanza. This quote has so many connotations, my first opinion on this was that the flares which the enemy are firing to light up the battle field are said to be representing the souls of the soldiers fallen comrades. This could also be said to represent the power the enemy has on their own mortality as the bright flares would light up the battle-field exposing everything to their view, this indicates that the enemy always seem to have power upon the soldiers, almost godly. The second metaphor which I will explore is:
“An ecstasy of fumbling” on line one of the second stanza. This metaphor is significant as it describes the quick manner in which the soldiers will have been trying to put their masks on. The soldiers would have been trying to put their masks on in a hurry but due to their physical condition their minds would have been wanting them to go faster than their body would have been allowing them, this is why there is said to be a: “Fumbling”. The term: “Ecstasy” would normally suggest a time of extreme emotion, normally joy, however in this situation it is used as a term of irony as this is a completely b...
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...ration, onomatopoeia, rhyme etc. One of the sound types I will be looking at is Full or perfect rhyme. This sound type is significant as in Dulce Et Decorum Est at the end of each sentence rhymes with the one before the last. This is significant as when reading this poem you notice this rhyming scheme and take more time to stop and ponder over the significance of the language it is based around and what connotations that word has: “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks” and “Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs”. This is one of the most effective rhyming schemes in the poem. Due to every second line rhyming this makes your remember what the poet was trying to put across in the previous lines as all the different lines have a way of tying in with one another.
Through reading this poem several times I decided that the message from the poem is that war is full of horror and there is little or no glory. Methods which I found most effective were Full rhyme and metaphor.
Overall Wilfred Owen shows that there is no triumph in war, he does this by using the dying soldier as an example. His main point is that the old saying: “Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori” is a lie.
Just as the poem is written in a rhyme and rhythm that makes poetry easy to follow, the vivid imagery helps one to picture more easily what is going on in the poem. Owen brilliantly chooses words and phrases that illuminate the scene, making the reader feel as if he is physically in the scene along with the characters. For example, Owen describes that the Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots/ But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;/ Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/ Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind (Gioia 782). A feeling of sadness and pity is felt as one hears the previous words. It is almost as if the scene of the soldiers trudging through the battlefield is being painted for the reader to actually visually ...
The poem Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen captures the reader and transports them back to a time or war and hardship, reminding them of our history and how society made the wrong decision all those years ago.
The two poems I will be comparing and contrasting are ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen along with ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Wilfred Owen wrote his poem in the duration of the World War one, the poem was first published in the 1920’s. Owens imagery shown in the poem is repulsive and presenting an ugly side of war, the language used by the poet is fierce. On the other hand Lord Tennyson wrote the poem at some point in the Battle of Balaclava in the 1854 however, Lord Tennyson has a diverse vision on war due to not understanding how war was, his imagery demonstrates a calm slow story explaining how he thought war would be. Both poems are similar however they tell there stories in different ways.
To draw into the poet’s world, the poet must draw relations between them, including the reader, making them feel what the poet feels, thinking what the poet thinks. Wilfred Owen does this very creatively and very effectively, in both of his poems, Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori and Anthem of Doomed Youth, who is seen as an idol to many people today, as a great war poet, who expresses his ideas that makes the reader feel involved in the moment, feeling everything that he does. His poems describe the horror of war, and the consequences of it, which is not beneficial for either side. He feels sorrow and anger towards the war and its victims, making the reader also feel the same.
The use of compelling figurative language helps to reveal the reality of war. In the first line, "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,"(1) shows us that the troops are so tired that they can be compared to old beggars. Another great use of simile, "His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,"(20) suggests that his face is probably covered with blood which is the colour symbolizing the devil. A very powerful metaphor is the comparison of painful experiences of the troops to "[v]ile, incurable sores on innocent tongues."(24) This metaphor emphasizes that the troops will never forget these horrific experiences. As you can see, Owen has used figurative language so effectively that the reader gets drawn into the poem.
In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’. Owen, throughout the poem, creates the impression of the trenches for the reader and stanza one helps to set the scene. The soldiers, who have been fighting for a long time in the trenches, are finally returning to their billets to rest. The exhaustion of the men is shown here through similes which compare the men to old beggars and hags, ‘like beggars under sacks’ and ‘coughing like hags’, although they were young men, showing just how exhausted they were and the effects the war is having on them physically. Also, the men are ‘blood-shod’ which makes them seem more like horses than human beings. Owen also uses metaphors in stanza one to describe the terrible tiredness the men were suffering from, ‘men marched asleep’. The stanza describes how the poor conditions of the trenches are putting a strain on the soldiers, until they are ‘knock-kneed’ and having to ‘trudge’ through the ‘sludge’ to get to their place of rest. They are ‘drunk with fatigue’ and limping with wounds or loss of boots. This stanza also illustrates the ...
The words Owen chooses to use in the poem describing the soldiers are peculiar choices. The speaker refers to them as “[b]ent double, like beggars in sacks” (line 1), very different from a typical idea of a soldier. From the beginni...
Owen emphasises that the massacres caused by war do lead to crippling physical damage. In ‘DEDE’, he conveys this by the use of simile paired with alliteration “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags”. These two lines, to begin ‘DEDE’ sets the mood of the poem, giving the audience a bitter greeting and asserts their fatigue. The comparison the men to beggars emphasises their ageing prematurely and that they have a lack of control over their life. Owen forcefully highlights how these men are going to war young but dying old due to the ageing of this war
The similes and metaphors used by Owen illustrate very negative war scenes throughout the poem, depicting extreme suffering of young men fighting during World War I. The first simile used by Owen describes the soldiers as “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks”, giving them sickly, wounded, and exhausted attributes from battle and lack of rest (1). Next, the soldiers are described as “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags”, which once again portrays these young men as sick...
I am going to compare the two poems “Dulce et decorum est” by Wilfred Owen and “Channel Firing” by Thomas Hardy. The poem by Hardy talks about the great German guns “Big Berthas” which fired across the channel at the nearest coastal villages, and how the noise of these guns is so terrific that it wakes the dead in their graves. “Dulce et decorum est” is a poem about a group of tired, worn out soldiers who are making their way back from the front line. They come under a gas attack and Owen describes to us the scene which is presented to him of a fellow soldier and companion “drowning” in his own mucus. Both poems portray a sense of helplessness to this exposure to the war!
It goes through the worst parts of the war and describes them in detail. The horrors in these descriptions contradict the glorification of the war The poem consists of four stanzas, the first describes the soldiers, the second a gas attack, the third Owen’s nightmares and last an accusation to the people back home. Owen’s poems are suffused with the horror of battle, and yet finely structured and innovative. The first stanza sets the scene as it describes the conditions the men fought in and their feelings. Owen immediately shocks the readers by describing the young soldiers as ‘bent double’ emphasising their exhaustion and the way they slump along, deformed by fatigue, I think this is an effective simile because no one back home will be expecting their proud soldiers described as beggars.
The soldiers are being attacked by poisonous gas. Owen draws attention to the one soldier who didn’t put his gas mask on fast enough. The poor man is suffering to the point of death in front of his fellow soldiers. Bryan Rivers, in his article, “Wilfred Owen’s Letter No. 486 As A Source For “Dulce Et Decorum Est,” explains Owen’s views about war by stating, “In his depiction of war, there is no “home” or place of safety “well behind”; just when the struggling soldiers think themselves safe from the “tired, outstripped FiveNines,” the gas suddenly overtakes them” (29). Owen concludes this poem by stating that anyone who experienced what happened to that unlucky soldier would view war differently. Owen’s goal was to display the realities of war and not portray it as heroic. This is one example of how World War I impacted
Throughout history, tragedy and suffering have inspired great works of art and literature; and Poetry is no exception. The Great War spawned an entire new age of poets and poems, all sharing views, opinions or experiences related to World War I. The poets who touched on the topic of World War 1 became known as “War Poets”. One of the most famous of these poets is Wilfred Owen and his famous and highly scrutinized Poem “Dulce et Decorum Est”. Many critics agree that Wilfred Owen’s famous poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” showed an accurate account of wartime conditions and hardships while criticizing the glorification of war, all through his own experiences and hardships.
In "Dulce et Decorum Est" Owen paints a pessimistic picture of what war really is like. Owen himself lost his life fighting for the British during WWI in 1918, the poem being published posthumously two years later. He describes the treacherous lives the soldiers lived while fitting in the war. He describes the weak physical and emotional conditions they experienced as they made there way through the mud and sludge. As the poet he gives an accurate portrayal of the negativity of war to reader, this is mainly done in his description of one solider who cannot affix his gas mask in time to thwart off a gas attack. His vivid description of this soldier's painstaking death illustrates the horrors of war. His pessimistic tone is exemplified at the end of the poem where he contradicts the old Latin saying, Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori, "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country" by labeling it an "old lie".
‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is without a doubt one of the most memorable poems from the World War One era. Written by Wilfred Owen, the imagery within the poem and the tone of which it is written in creates an unforgettable visual of what the war was actually like.