Analysis Of Dulce Et Decorum Est By Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen, a World War One poet, revealed the unsettling subject matter of war by using his own personal perspective to explore the harsh brutal reality of war.

In order to fully understand and appreciate great poetry, one must be acquainted with the poet. Wilfred Owen was born in Shropshire, England. After being educated at the Technical School in Shrewsbury, he later taught in France at the Berlitz School of English. It was in France where Owen became interested in World War I. In 1915, Owen enlisted in the army, unaware of the effects it would later have on his psychological state and overall well-being. After suffering battle wounds during combat in 1917, Owen was diagnosed with shell shock--more commonly known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Unfortunately, war had made yet another victim of Owen. However, from the misfortune came a silver lining. As he resided in the Craiglockhart War Hospital, he met a poet by the name of Siegfried Sassoon. Sassoon pulled Owen deep into the world of literature, showing him acclaimed works and "...well-known literary figures such as Robert Graves and H.G. Wells"

Wilfred Owen's poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est", uses striking and vivid imagery to convey the horror of gas warfare during World War I. Owen opens the poem with a description of soldiers retreating from battlefield. These men are exhausted as they "marched asleep." (line 6) The agonizing physical state soldiers lived through is grusesome and detailedly depicted by Owen. He explains how they "bent double like old beggars inder sacks/Knock-kneed, coughing like hags" (lines 1-2). Soon, "Gas! GAS!" (line 9) is shouted and the men go into an "ecstasy of fumbling" (line 9) to secure their masks against the green poison trying to invade their lungs. This new chemical warfare introduced in World War I was a deadly enemy that many were not prepared for.

Even a century long time after his death, Wilfred Owen is still famous for his war poetry written during World War 1. In his poems, Owen uses various language techniques to vividly illustrate the horrendous reality of war. Hence, he communicates his own anti-war feelings, that are embedded beneath his techniques. However, although he is now known as an anti-war poet, for once, he had been a naive boy, who had been pressured by the propaganda and volunteered to fight in war.

Wilfred Owen, born in 1893, was an aspiring poet and enlisted in the British army in 1915. It was only when he set foot in the trenches he realised the disguised horrors of war underneath the superficial layer of glory. The damaging encounters of war was a motivating factor for him to propagate the truths. In 1917, Owen was admitted to Craiglockhart Military hospital, diagnosed with shell shock. It was his time there which inspired him to write his poem, ‘Mental Cases’, which captures the every grim detail of war.

As an anti-war poet, Wilfred Owen uses his literary skills to express his perspective on human conflict and the wastage involved with war, the horrors of war, and its negative effects and outcomes. As a young man involved in the war himself, Owen obtained personal objectivity of the dehumanisation of young people during the war, as well as the false glorification that the world has been influenced to deliver to them. These very ideas can be seen in poems such as 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' and 'Dulce ET Decorum EST Pro Patria Mori'. Owen uses a variety of literary techniques to convey his ideas.

By creating these nurturing, peaceful images of a beautiful countryside, Brooke evokes pride from his primary audience, which in turn creates a sense of nationalism. Furthermore, references to the themes of heaven and the afterlife create comforting images in the reader’s mind. Brooke describes a ‘pulse in the eternal mind’ for the ‘hearts at peace under an English heaven’, suggesting that those who die fighting for their country will find themselves in a heaven as idyllic as England. The paradisiacal images created by Brooke are a stark contrast to the gruesome images featured in Owen’s poem. Dulce et Decorum est is rich in similes that graphically illustrate the goriest details of war. The soldiers in the poem are described as ‘old beggars’ who are ‘coughing like hags’, which illustrates a loss of dignity, health and the innocence associated with youth. As the poem progresses, a soldier is the victim of a gas attack and is described vividly, with ‘white eyes, writhing in his face’ as ‘blood comes gargling from his froth-corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer’. Owen’s dark subject matter is further explored through his juxtaposition of ‘children ardent for desperate glory’ and soldiers marching like ‘beggars under sacks’. The use of these similes and images shocks the reader and conveys the ruthless reality of war.

?Dulce Et Decorum Est? belongs to the genre of sonnets, which expresses a single theme or idea. The allusion or reference is to an historical event referred to as World War I. This particular poem's theme or idea is the horror of war and how young men are led to believe that death and honor are same. The poem addresses the falsehood, that war is glorious, that it is noble, it describes the true horror and waste that is war, this poem exhibits the gruesome imagery of World War I, it also conveys Owens strongly anti-war sentiments to the reader. He makes use of a simple, regular rhyme scheme, which makes the poem sound almost like a child's poem or nursery rhyme. Owens use of

Wilfred Owen’s porter vividly depicts the horror and futility of war and the detrimental impact of war upon the soldiers. Owen’s poem, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, written in 1917 depicts the horror of war as the physical and mental damages on the solders. Most importantly, the context of the poem subverts its title. In his other poem, ‘Futility’ written in 1918, conveys war as fatal and that war is pure wastage of human lives.

The First World War was a time of great loss of life and bloodshed. Wilfred Owen, a soldier fighting with the British Army, wrote the poem Dulce et Decorum est to describe, possibly to the public, the horrific consequences of taking part and fighting in the war. During the poem, he describes the aftermath of a poison gas attack, and the injuries sustained by a soldier whom had inhaled the deadly substance. Owen uses gruesome imagery to vividly show in verse the horrible death the soldier faces, in the trenches of France. The poem Dulce et Decorum est is widely regarded as one of the greatest war poems ever written, and is a fine example of an anti-war protest in the form of poetry.

Thornhill, Rodger. "World War I and Wilfred Owen's Poetry." Yahoo! Contributor Network. Yahoo Voices, 30 July 2009. Web. 04 May 2013.

Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively conveys his perspectives on human conflict through his experiences during The Great War. Poems such as ‘Futility’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ portray these perceptions through the use of poetic techniques, emphasising such conflicts involving himself, other people and nature. These themes are examined in extreme detail, attempting to shape meaning in relation to Owen’s first-hand encounters whilst fighting on the battlefield.

Wilfred Owen was one of the most famous young war poets who wrote about World War I, but he had a difficult childhood and professional life. Wilfred was born on March 18, 1893 in Oswestry, England and died on November 4, 1918 in northern France at the age of 25 (Major). He was the oldest of four, born in his maternal grandfather’s house. Wilfred’s parents were not very close. His father, Thomas, was a railway station master where he earned a very low salary. His mother, Susan Shaw, “felt that her marriage limited her intellectual, musical, and economic ambitions.” As the oldest child, Wilfred became protective over his younger siblings and very close with his mother. At the age of 4, the family moved to Birkenhead, England where Wilfred went to

Wilfred Owen wrote a powerful anti-poem Disabled” about a young soldier wanting to join the war in 1917; under the circumstance of World War 1 which was written while he was a patient at a War Hospital in Scotland, after being diagnosed with ‘neurasthenia’ (‘shell-shock’). Owen wrote this poem to show pro-war poets what it was actually like to experience the battle, and to contrast with poems such as ‘Who’s for the Game?’ by Jessie Pope which portrayed war as being a ‘good game’. Owen was so anti-war because he had

Wilfred Owen can be considered as one of the finest war poets of all times. His war poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, use a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathise with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. The sonnet form, para-rhymes, ironic titles, voice, and various imagery used by Owen grasp the prominent central idea of the complete futility of war as well as explore underlying themes such as the massive waste of young lives, the horrors of war, the hopelessness of war and the loss of religion. These can be seen in the three poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and