Paulina Piotrowski 4/18/2011

“Dulce et Decorum Est”

Introduction:

Poetry is defined as “a literary work in which special intensity is given to the

expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm.” This

expression of ideas and feelings can be difficult to understand by simply reading the

poem once. To fully interpret a poem, the poem must be analyzed from an informed

perspective. The poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” written by Wilfred Owen, is one that

requires such an analysis. Through the examination of the author’s biographical

information and life experiences, as well as the style and structure of the poem, a full

understanding of the poem emerges.

Biographical Background:

Wilfred Owen was a British poet, teacher, and soldier, born on March 18 th,

1893. He was educated at the University College, Reading. Owen’s educational

background shows that he was raised in a lower middle class family. Owen’s mother

influenced his work due to their strong relationship. The letters, which he wrote to

his mother, are the only remaining insight to Owen’s personal life, including his

comments of fellow soldiers. His strong relationship with his mother also influenced

his devout faith as an Anglican. However, this faith was later negated due to his

experiences on the war front of World War I.

The First World War was fought between 1914 and 1918. Owen “spent the

first half of the war in France as a civilian, moving from post to post as a tutor for

young boys,” (Hipp, 25). During his time as a French civilian, he taught soldiers

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poetry. Owen was not a pacifist, as he believed that the German’s should be

defeated; however, he had doubts about enlisting to fight because of his political

beliefs. On October 12, 1915 Owen enlisted as a soldier in the Great War, and was

sent to fight in France in early 1917.

Owen’s optimistic outlook on war quickly diminished. After four months in

active battle, Owen experienced shell shock. This was instigated by two events:

being blown into the air by a trench mortar and landing in the remains of a fellow

officer, and being trapped for days in an old German dugout. As a result, Owen was

removed from the front line, and sent to a hospital in Scotland to recover. Here he

was encouraged to write poetry in order to stimulate an emotional healing process.

During this recovery period, Owen wrote realistic poetry on the horrors of tranches

and gas warfare, including “Dulce et Decorum Est”.

While recovering in Scotland, Owen met Siegfried Sassoon, a fellow British

poet and soldier. Sassoon “belonged to an entirely different sort of world from

Owen” (Hibberd, 4), as he was educated in Cambridge, and lived an upper middle

class lifestyle. Sassoon greatly influenced Owen’s writing, seen in Owen’s early

poetry, “which he modeled upon Sassoon’s [protesting] approach to the war” (Hipp,

28). Sassoon greatly affected Owen’s recovery, by positively influencing Owen’s

mood. However, Owen’s psyche remained damaged by the horrors of war. He

suffered from disastrous nightmares of the war front, which prolonged his recovery.

In hopes of helping his friend, Sassoon offered Owen the advice to “sweat your guts

out writing poetry” (Hipp, 30). This advice worked with the ergotherapy, healing by

means of work and activity, advised for Owen by his doctors. The combination of

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Sassoon’s advice and the ergotherapy aided in Owen’s restored creativity and

inspiration for further poetry.

While writing war poetry based on his experiences, Owen encountered the

premise and inspiration for “Dulce et Decorum Est”, exaggerated and glorified war

propaganda. When Owen wrote “Dulce et Decorum Est”, he combated a well know

propaganda poem by Jessie Pope, “The Call”. “The Call”, “exhorted young men to

enlist and save England, or be called cowards” (Wikipedia). Through life experience

on the war front, Owen knew that young men motivated emotionally to enlist would

not become effective soldiers, as they would hold a false sense of glory rather than a

realistic approach to battle. Owen wanted to show a contrast between the realities

of life on the war front and the public’s perception of the war, thus “Dulce et

Decorum Est” was originally entitled “To Jessie Pope”. Owen’s poem “read as an

attack upon the ignorant belligerence of civilian non combatants” (Norgate, 520),

such as war reporters including Jessie Pope, whose “poetry seemed to take a light-

hearted approach towards a conflict considered brutal and extreme” (Wikipedia).

Owen wished to expose the true occurrences on the war front, writing “Dulce et

Decorum Est” to depict the public perceived lie: it is sweet and noble to die for one’s

country.

Poem Analysis:

“Dulce et Decorum Est” is a twenty-eight line poem organized into three

stanzas; written using iambic pentameter with a couplet rhyme scheme, which

illustrates a scene of a Great War combat involving mustard gas. Death by mustard

gas “produces a flooding of the lungs- it is an equivalent death to drowning. The

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effects [include] a headache, a knife edge pain in the lungs and coughing up of

greenish froth, the color of skin from white turns a greenish black and yellow. It is

fiendish death to die” (Cotton, 1). The gassing is brilliantly pictured in John Singer

Sargent’s painting Gassed, which parallels the sight of blind soldiers described in

“Dulce et Decorum Est”.

The first stanza opens to a description of the effect on soldiers being gassed.

In reading the first line, one quickly observes the contrast between the title and the

poem’s content. The title, which translates from Latin to “It is Sweet and Honorable”,

is quickly juxtaposed in the first line, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks” (1),

as Owen compares the marching soldiers to old beggars. Soldiers are usually young

men, full of energy and life, and by comparing the soldiers to old beggars; Owen is

illustrating how that war has taken a toll on them. Young men in good health do not

“cough like hags” (2) or “limp on, blood-shod” (6); the soldiers are worn, ill and

tired, they are not marching in step gloriously as the title suggests; instead the

soldiers are behaving in a manner opposite of the typical behavior of young men.

The first stanza also depicts how acclimated the soldiers were to the war. The

men were unaffected by the sights and sounds of the war, unlike a civilian, who

would not be as adapted because one would not turn his back on “haunting flares”

(2). The soldiers were unmoved, “deaf even to the hoots / of gas-shells dropping

softly behind” (7-8). The soldiers did not pay attention to the “soft” explosions

because these surroundings are their everyday scenery. In the beginning of the war

the soldiers would have acted with more caution, now, because their minds and

bodies are exhausted by the war, the soldiers take grater risks.

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 The second stanza narrates a gas attack. The “ecstasy of fumbling” (9)

illustrates the soldiers’ survival instinct. The quicker tempo of this stanza parallels

the speed required for putting on the gas masks effectively. However, the one

soldier that is unable to put on his gas mask in time also behaves in a frenzy,

“yelling, stumbling, floundering, drowning, guttering, and choking” (11-12, 14, 16).

The speaker of the poem describes the scene as “dim, through the misty panes and

thick green light / as under a green sea” (13-14). A beautiful green sea is contrasted

by the eeriness of this horrific gas scene because of the green color of the gas and

the green tint of the gas masks. The soldier “drowned” in the mustard gas attack

from the edema that filled his lungs.

The next section of the poem continues with a description of the awful,

nightmare inducing suffering of the soldier. The speaker describes his “smothering

dreams” (17), in which the soldier suffers “before [his] helpless sight” (15). The

hideous death of the soldier resonates in the speaker’s mind, which is described

with vivid imagery as the soldier “plunges at [the speaker], guttering, choking,

drowning“ (16). The wounded soldier did not receive any medical attention; instead,

he was “flung” (18) into a wagon, which presents the ghastly sight of dying for one’s

country. The speaker emphasizes the brutality of the scene with various poetic

devices, such as the assonance of " white eyes writhing " (19). With the haunting

description of the soldier’s anguish, the reader perceives the sound of blood as it

“[came] gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs" (22), which further stresses how

brutal death in war is.

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 The conclusion of the poem is directed to Jessie Pope and other ignorant

non-combatants, including soldiers who did not write honest poetry. Owen

addresses the critics ironically as “[his] friend” (25), and urges them to impede to

false propaganda. The young men, who the propaganda is geared towards, are still

children who are “ardent for some desperate glory” (26), and they will do almost

anything for some recognition, including fighting a war blindly. Because the young

men were eagerly convinced of the glories of war, they are unaware of the dangers.

The poet stresses that “Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori” (27-28) is an old lie.

By describing the gassing-episode with great detail, Owen reiterates that dying for

one’s country is not sweet or decorous.

Conclusion:

The interpretation of Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” required

extensive knowledge of the author’s life and the poem’s structure and style. Without

such an analysis, a full understanding of the poem would be unfeasible. The author

depicted that death at war is a cruel and horrifying experience. The poem was

written to illustrate the flaws of war propaganda, which did not accurately

represent being at war. A detailed analysis of “Dulce et Decorum Est” portrays the

ultimate lie: it is sweet and noble to die for one’s country.