Dulce et Decorum Est

Read the poem carefully, and make notes on all the highlighted contextual points that would add to a reader’s understanding of the poem and Owen’s messages. You can check back later to see if you were on the right lines by clicking on each of the highlights.

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags ,
we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
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 gas shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
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 ...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori
.

Wilfred Owen


Paragraph 1

In Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen presents in graphic detail a specific incident in the world changing conflict of World War 1, which he presumably witnessed, as he enlisted in 1915, and fought on the front line until he was killed in action, just a week before the Armistice. In the poem, writing in the first person, he describes the scene of a group of exhausted soldiers making their way back to their base in the trenches when they are caught by a shell attack. One of the soldiers is unable to get his gas mask on in time, and, almost in slow motion, every stage of his suffering is described by Owen, who leaves the reader in no doubt that those who urged young men to sign up, with such expressions as the Latin “Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori,” translated as “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country” were deluded, as the scenes described by Owen are anything but “sweet.”

The poem starts by…..

Paragraph 2

The famous war poet, Wilfred Owen was born in March 1893, in Oswestry, and later lived in Birkenhead, Cheshire, and Shrewsbury. He was the oldest of four children. He was very religious as he grew up, partly owing to the influence of his mother, but as he grew older he became disillusioned with the church. he worked for a while as a tutor in France, but in 1916 joined the Manchester regiment and was sent out to France. He was the victim of a shell attack, and, suffering from shell-shock, was sent back to Edinburgh to recover. Here he met Siegfried Sassoon, another famous war poet, who encouraged him to write. He returned to France towards the end of the war, but was killed in action a week before the Armistice. In fact, when his mother in Shropshire received the telegram telling of his death, the church bells were ringing in celebration at the end of the war.

In Dulce et Decorum Est Owen describes the horrors of being caught up in a shell attack (probably based on his own experiences). The poem starts by….

Feedback

While both of these have their merits, Example 1 is the stronger response, as it links contextual knowledge to the poem much more efficiently. It is important to remember that you only have 20 minutes or so to show off your knowledge and understanding of each poem in the exam, and this includes its content and stylistic features as well as context, so the more economically you can filter in references to all these aspects, blending them together, the better.

Look at the examples again, and notice how Example 2 is all AO3 (context) whereas Example 1 addresses all three Assessment Objectives.

Your go!

Have a go at writing the next paragraph, dealing with the first stanza of Dulce et Decorum Est. Aim to filter in your contextual knowledge, using some of the ideas on the previous screen, while you discuss what is happening in the poem, and how Owen puts across his ideas about conflict.