Dulce et Decorum Est
Wilfred
Owen [1893-1918]
Wilfred Owen uses vivid
imagery and direct
syntax to convey the brutal reality faced by an infantryman
in
World War I. The central fact of
this poem is that it involves
human
experience and
suffering. The
poet speaks with a particular
voice because his experience demands it.
The poem is written as
two
sonnets, the first embodying the structure of a
Petrarchan sonnet, an
octave followed by a
sestet, and the
rhyme scheme of a
Shakespearean
sonnet, omitting the
rhyming couplet at the end. In other words, the
rhyme scheme is
ababcdcd,efefgh. The second sonnet is similar to a
Shakespearean
sonnet in
meter and
rhyme, except for the absence of a
terminal couplet.
gh,ijijklklmnmn.
Similes and
metaphors
are used in abundance, conveying in simple and direct terms the
mood of the
soldiers as they trudge towards a distant destination. "Bent double like old
beggars under sacks" (line 1), "coughing like hags" (line 2),
"we
cursed through
sludge" (line 2), "drunk with fatigue"
(line 7) all
impart the fatigue and weak condition of the men in
battle.
Owen again uses
similes
to describe the
gas attack. "And
flound'ring like a man on
fire or
lime" (line 12) and, "as under
a green sea I saw him
drowning" (line 14) depict a man slowly dying,
his lungs burnt by
poison gas.
The gas shells are
personified
(line 7) as hooting down from the sky. This and the
imagery used
and thick green light" (line 13) creates a
vision
all the more horrible; the essence of
war is conveyed.
The
onomatopoeia in "Gas! GAS!" (line 9) representing the
release of the gas makes the
image even more
graphic.
Owen uses a
double
entendre twice in his poem. In the
first, "Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs" (line 3)
the word
haunting also sounds like
hunting. The flares light up the area, giving it a ghostly,
haunted look. They also
hunt the
soldiers down and pursue them no matter where they turn. The flares shine on them and
blind them.
The second, "Dim through the misty
panes and thick green
light"
(line 13) uses the word
pane.
It represents the small
panes covering the
eye holes in a
gas-mask; the material used made everything look a little
cloudy.
It also represents
pain in the sense of viewing the world through a
pain-induced
haze. This choice of words emphasizes the
fear,
pain and
desperation Owen and the other soldiers felt at the time. Always moving, trudging through mud, constantly
being shelled, gassed and illuminated by flares has made them so tired that
they can barely think.
This first
sonnet describes
what
Owen witnessed in the
war. The second
sonnet is addressed to the
reader.
It describes his dreams of the event and what would happen
if we, the readers, had witnessed it.
The
metaphor: "If
in some smothering dreams" (line 17), the
simile: "His hanging face,
like a devil's sick of sin" (line 20), and the
personification of "innocent
tongues" (line 24)
are all threads in this detailed
tapestry.
The vivid
imagery (lines 17-24) of the bodies as seen in
Owen's recurring
dream further enforce the horror of war. In
lines twenty-five to
twenty-eight,
Owen states that if we had seen what he had, we would not tell
our children that it is
sweet and
becoming to
die for one's country.
In saying this,
Owen denies history because the willingness of people
to die for one's country has started and finished countless
wars.
This poem can be compared
to another by
Ezra Pound. The closing
line "
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" is echoed in Part IV
of
Ezra Pound's poem "
Hugh Selwyn
Mauberly."
Pound also emphasizes the horror of
war
but his poem contrasts with
Owen's in one important way; it was written for
a different reason. Owen wrote his poem
because he needed to write down his experience and feelings of
war. As it turned out, he died a week before the
armistice.
Pound's is a post-war
poem by a
poet who didn't experience
war.
His poem's function is education about war and its
consequences. It tells people of causes and the
horrors
of war, urging them to avoid its destructive power. This is apparent in this excerpt:
some
in fear, learning
love of slaughter;
died
some
pro patria, non
dulce non et
decor"..
walked
eye-deep in hell
believing
in
old men's lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a
lie,
home
to many
deceits,
home
to
old lies and new infamy;
In part V of the same
poem,
Pound also mourns the artists, like
Owen, who were
swallowed up by the
war:
There
died a
myriad,
And of the best, among them,
For
an
old bitch gone in the teeth,
For
a
botched civilization,
Charm,
smiling at the good mouth,
Quick
eyes gone under
earth's lid,
For
two gross of
broken statues,
For
a few thousand
battered books.
The last line of
Owen's
poem alludes to Book III of
Horace's
Odes,
poem II which talks of the
nature of
war and
youth. It begins:
Angustam
amice pauperiem pati
Robostus
acri militia puer
Condiscat
et Parthos feroces
Vexet
eques metuendus hasta
To
suffer in hardness with good
cheer,
In
sternest school of warfare bred,
Our youth should learn; let steed and spear
Make
him one day the
Parthian's dread;
This enforces the belief
that real
manliness is to
die for one's country.
However, the quote from
Horace in
Owen's poem is
quite ambiguous.
Decorum comes from
decus, meaning
fitting;
nothing is
right or
wrong, only what is
fitting. Thus,
a
soldier who is a
coward is
wrong but being a
coward is not
wrong.
Owen, who
died when
he was twenty-five, used the simple and most basic
literary devices in his
poem because he hadn't had any time to learn or develop other
stylistic techniques.
At that period,
Latin was taught in schools, so
Owen would have been
familiar with
Horace's text. Indeed,
it was a known
cliche. I don't think
Owen had
Horace's dual meaning of
decorum in mind.
Rather, he used the phrase, expressing his
disgust of war and his
desire
that later generations will not be swept away by its tides.
It is
ironic to note
that when
Horace, who seemed to believe in
dying for one's country, experienced
war, he dropped his shield and ran, so that he could
live to fight another
day.
Owen, who didn't believe in
dying for one's country, died while fighting on the
front line.
Horace did what he thought was fitting.
Owen did not.