Dulce Et Decorum Est a Critical Analysis free essay sample

Dulce et Decorum est Dulce et Decorum est   is a poem written by  poet  Wilfred Owen  in 1917, during  World War I, and published posthumously in 1920. Dulce et Decorum Est  uses gruesome imagery to narrate the horrors of a gas attack. Owens poem is known for its horrific  imagery  and condemnation of war. His poetry is characterised by powerful descriptions of the conditions faced by soldiers in the trenches. It was drafted at  Craiglockhart  in the first half of October 1917 and later revised, probably at  Scarborough  but possibly  Ripon, between January and March 1918. The earliest surviving manuscript is dated 8 October 1917 and addressed to his mother, Susan Owen, with the message Here is a gas poem done yesterday, (which is not private, but not final). Formally, the poem can be understood as the combination of two sonnets, though the spacing of the stanzas is irregular. The text presents a vignette from the front lines of World War I; specifically, of British soldiers attacked with  chemical weapons. We will write a custom essay sample on Dulce Et Decorum Est : a Critical Analysis or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In the rush when the shell with poison gas explodes, one soldier is unable to get his mask on in time. The speaker of the poem describes the gruesome effects of the gas on the man and concludes that, if one were to see firsthand the reality of war, one might not repeat mendacious platitudes like  Horaces about the nature of war. Through the poem, and particularly strong in the last stanza, there is a running commentary, a letter to  Jessie Pope, a civilian propagandist of World War I, who encouraged—with such high zest—young men to join the battle, through her poetry, e. g. Whos for the game? The first draft of the poem, indeed, was dedicated to Pope. A later revision amended this to a certain Poetess,though this did not make it into the final publication, either, as Owen apparently decided to address his poem to the larger audience of war supporters in general such as the women who handed out  white feathers  during the conflict to men whom they regarded as cowards for not being at the front. In the last stanza, however, the original intention can still be seen in Owens bitter address. he title of this poem translates to It is sweet and right. The title and the  Latin  exhortation of the final two lines are drawn from the phrase Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori written by the  Roman  poet  Horace  in (Ode  III. 2. 13) Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: mors et fugacem persequitur virum nec parcit inbellis iuventae poplitibus timidove tergo. How sweet and right it is to die for ones country: Death pursues the man who flees, spares not the hamstrings or cowardly backs Of battle-shy youths. These words were well known and often quoted by supporters of the war near its inception and were, therefore, of particular relevance to soldiers of the era. In 1913, the first line,  Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, was inscribed on the wall of the chapel of the  Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. In the final stanza of his poem, Owen refers to this as The old Lie. There is not a clearly defined structure to the poem, although Owen does make use of rhyme, mostly on alternate line endings. My subject is War, and the pity of War, Owen wrote in a draft of the preface to his intended volume of poems. The collection was intended to convey the disgusting horror of war to an ill-informed and largely complacent audience in England. Dulce et Decorum Est describes a mustard gas attack on a group of war-weary soldiers. Owens painfully direct language combines gritty realism with an aching sense of compassion. His despair at the crumbling of the moral order the worlds and perhaps his own are expressed in phrases such as froth-corrupted lungs, sores on innocent tongues and his description of the dying mans face like a devils sick of sin. Th e poem is short, just 28 lines, but its exceptionally vivid imagery packs a punch that creates a lasting and disturbing impression on the reader. The poem opens with a description of trench life and the conditions faced by the soldiers. Then comes the gas attack, and the poem offers a graphic description of the effects of such an attack. The style of Dulce et Decorum est is similar to the  French ballade  poetic form. [5]  By referencing this formal poetic form and then breaking the conventions of pattern and rhyming, Owens accentuates the disruptive and chaotic events being told. The poem separates into two parts, each of 14 lines. The first part of the poem (the first 8 line and the second 6 line stanzas) is written in the present as the action happens and everyone is reacting to the events around them. In second part (the third 2 line and the last 12 line stanzas), Owens writes as though at a distance from the horror: he refers to what is happening twice as if in a dream, as though standing back watching the events or even recalling them. The second part looks back to draw a lesson from what happened at the start. The two 14 line parts of the poem again echoes a formal poetic style, the  sonnet  and again it is a broken and unsettling version of this form.