DULCE ET DECORUM EST – OWEN

The first element that captures the reader’s attention is that the title is written in Latin. The choice of Latin language confers authority to the text and it suggests that the ideal readers of the poem were literate and cultured people. The title means ‘it is sweet and honorable’ and it is a quotation from the Latin poet Horace (1^st century BC), who borrowed the line from the Greek poet Tyrtaeus (7^th century BC). The title makes the reader hypothesize that the poem will deal with sweet and honorable themes. Just after reading and knowing the poem is about war and death, the reader will understand the irony behind the title.

The poem is arranged into three octaves, whose rhyme scheme follows the pattern ABAB CDCD.

The poem is based on the poet’s experience of the horrors of war in the trenches, and it is an attempt to communicate the ‘pity’ of war to future generations. Indeed, Wilfred Owen, differently from Rupert Brooke, has effectively taken part to the conflict, he has fought and has experienced the horrors of war. Therefore, the speaking voice, that is a soldier’s voice, is actually the poet himself.

In the first octave, the speaking voice is describing what he and his party are doing during an attack of the enemy. It is interesting to notice that the narrator doesn’t reveal who are their enemies. The stylistic choice of hiding the enemy’s identity adds mystery to the lines, but it has also an ideological meaning. The choice is functional to generalize the situation and to convey the message that, during a conflict, your enemy’s identity is not relevant.

The soldier doesn’t let the reader know who are the conflicting parties. Speaking in abstract terms, the speaking voice doesn’t focus the attention on the identity of the soldiers but on the message and on the feelings, the images.  

The boys are bent over like old beggars carrying sacks, and they curse and cough through the mud until the "haunting flares" tell them it is time to head toward their rest. As they march some men are asleep, others limp with bloody feet as they'd lost their boots. All are lame and blind, extremely tired and deaf to the shells falling behind them.

The speaking voice creates the image of exhausted soldiers exploiting similes. He compares the soldiers to old beggars without strength and to old and unhealthy hags. It is interesting to notice that the soldier himself is comparing his companions, his mates to old and unhealthy people! He looks around himself and he sees depravation, misery and exhaustion. He doesn’t hide the realty behind an heroic and idealized image of strong young soldiers. He is cruelly realistic!

The idea of exhaustion is also conveyed by the use of compound words as we can infer by reading “bent double”, “knock-kneeds” and “blood-shod”, and by the use of metaphors as in line 6 and 7 ”blood-shod” and “drunk with fatigue”. Metaphors are functional to underline once again that it is not an heroic scene since the soldiers have been badly wounded and mutilated: many have lost their boots as we can read in line 6 “blood-shod” and in lines 7-8 “the hoots of gas shells”.

Suddenly there is an explosion of gas, and a voice calls "Quick, boys!". The speaking voice makes the reader hear and see the scene. The crude and realistic language relies on sounds and images. Therefore the reader feels what the soldiers felt, he experiences with them that moment of panic.  The soldiers try to put on their helmets in time, but one of them is still yelling out and stumbling and screaming like a man on fire. And through the dim "thick green light" the soldier sees him drawing. That image torments the soldier’s dreams, upsetting his mind.   

In the second stanza is there is a change in tone and rhythm.

The sudden change of atmosphere is provoked by the gas attack, and the urgency of the warning is rendered through the repetition of word “gas” followed by the exclamation marks and printed firstly in small and then in capital letters.

The two exclamation “gas, GAS!”, linked to the previous section where the soldiers are deaf because of the noise of gas shells. The second word in capital letters wakes them up from their sleepiness just in time to put the masks on.

At line 9 the word “ecstasy” may mean frenzy since the soldiers seem crazy after the gas attack, suggesting animal instincts, awkwardness, confusion, blind panic, frantic movements.

Moreover, the image of frantic movements and confusion is emphasized by the use of gerund verbs like “flumbing”, ”fitting”, “yelling out”, “stumbling” and “floundering”.

The reader’s attention then shifts on the presence of the “green” gas. The green light of the scene suggests that the poet is seeing through the green glass of his gas-mask.

The gas is compared to a “green sea”. The simile between the gas vapours and the sea relies on the cruel image of a man drowning, metaphor for the overwhelmed soldiers’ conditions in the trouble of war. Indeed at the end of the second stanza, the poet focuses on the death of a soldier suffocated by the gas. Death is the conclusive image of the second stanza.

Finally, the third stanza describes with crude precision the soldier’s death because of the gas. The speaking voice focuses on the horrible deformation of the soldiers’ face. In order to convey the horror of the scene, the poet compares the soldier to a “devil’s sick of sin”: he exploits the religious image of the devil to convey the deformation of the soldier’s face. He reinforces that image through the similes “obscene as cancer” and “bitter as cud”. The semantic choices are functional to convey all the soldier’s sufferance.

In conclusion, still with the image of the soldier’s death in his mind, the poet directly addresses the reader, ironically calling him “my friend”. The final lines unveil the message of the poem, and reveal the ironic meaning of the title: when you know what war means, you will not tell to those young boys (“children”) ardent for some glory the old lie “Dulce et decorum pro patria mori”.

The poem wants to be a critique towards those people who celebrate war as a way to gain the glory,  who invite young unaware boys to go towards their death.