[132] Dulce Et Decorum Est

I tend to dislike topicality, but now is as good a time as any...

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! --- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime ---
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,---
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

    -- Wilfred Owen

[The title is from a line of Horace - "It is sweet and honourable to die
for one's country."]

If ever proof were needed that the 19th century was truly over, it came
in the shape of the First World War. The horrors of that conflagration
scarred the English psyche to an extent that marked the end of an era -
no more would sentimental Victorian poets talk about death and honour in
the same breath. More than anything else, the conflict that decimated a
generation of young Europeans opened the public's eyes to the sheer
inhumanity of large-scale trench warfare, the pointlessness of it all.

Owen's genius was his ability to celebrate the ordinary without
profaning it; he had a deep and abiding sympathy for his fellow
soldiers, while his own undisputed courage in action and sense of duty
gave him the moral authority to denounce the war (and War, for that
matter) for what it was - a sickness, a corruption, a festering evil of
which no good could possibly come.

Yes, I know that the language I use is strong, but then, so is Owen's
verse. He does not hold back or disguise his horror at what he saw -
        " ... the blood
    Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
    Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
    Of vile, incurable sores... "
- and this, too, is an aspect of his greatness; by using the natural
rhythms of speech, by soiling his hands with solid, everyday words, he
cuts closer to the heart of experience than did any of the genteel
Victorians. This is what gives him his power; this is what makes his
poetry real.

Oh, and the second syllable of the third line is pretty good, too :-).

thomas.

[Biography]

Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 and died in action in 1918. He was a man
of great sensitivy, and an intellectual, plunged against his will into
the holocaust of an atrocious war. He responded to the war, which
horrified and disgusted him, in a way which was never simple. In one
letter he wrote 'My senses are charred', but there is certainly no
evidence in his surviving poetry that they were numbed.

[LitCrit]

... Owen came to see the war, not as a disease to be cured by purely
political action, nor as a crusade against evil, but as a major tragedy
to which the only appropriate response was compassion. 'The poetry is in
the Pity', he wrote in the much-quoted introduction he had prepared for
his first book of poems...

... In his best poems, he writes not only about war, but about war as a
metaphor for the human condition. This give his best work a far-reaching
gravity and moral force which will never date and which makes his poems
applicable to any situation in which people must suffer and die.

[Today's poem]

... As so often, Owen seems in this poem to have taken over some of the
vocabulary and imagery of late 19th century poetry and injected a new
realism into it, [reminding] us that some of the public horror of the
First World War had already been experienced and predicted by the
agonies and breakdowns aof decadent poets from Baudelaire onwards...

    -- from 'Poetry 1990 to 1975', George Macbeth

[Trivia]

  The English composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) mixed several poems
or fragments of poems by Owen (" Anthem for Doomed Youth", " The Next
War", " Sonnet (On seeing a piece of our heavy artillery brought into
action)", " Futility", " The Parable of the Old Man and the Young", "
The End", " At a Calvary near the Ancre" and " Strange Meeting") with
liturgical texts from the "Missa pro defunctis" in his War Requiem,
composed in 1962 at the occasion of the re-opening of the cathedral of
Coventry, bombed during the second World War.

[Post Scriptum]

"Grey highrise buildings...
When I unmask the forger
I will wring his neck."

(though I must admit the spoof post was one of the best laughs I've had
in ages - simply hilarious... and I was most flattered by the comparison
to Mr Toad).

thomas.
The 14-year old Haiku Wizard.

From: "Lynn Corbett" <lcorbett@>

Owen's terrific use of diction brings this poem to life -- imagery, a
very important factor in poetry, is prevalent all throught his writings
in 'Dolce et Decorum est.' His tone - depression, lack of hope, and, of
course, sadness, reveals his message without writing pages of verse; he
accomplishes his message very quickly in the poem, and makes the
audience feel like they are actually experiencing what the narrator is
going through.

A.V.C.
Mon. July 17, 2000

From: "yiuhome" <yiuhome@>

Can any one tell me some of the techniqures about Dulce Et Decorm Est?
Also i want to know is there any important lines and Can you Explain the
line " Gas, Gas, Quick boys" to me? Thx

From: George Sotiropoulos <gs01@>

a very moving poem with much truth, that gives a great indication that
we all take life for granted, and we often fall selfish to our personal
needs and wants and not wanting the wealth of happiness, love, and peace

peter sotiropoulos

From: "DVCIMVS" <aaronwestley@>

This poem is strong, however it merely brushes what battle is like. One
thing I hate about our school system is how it picks apart such poems if
you want to call it a poem. It's more like an ulugy or a last breath of
wisdom in vain.

"Gas! Gas! Gas!" is an order given to have everyone put their NBC
(Nuclear Biological Chemical) gear on. In this case being The Great War,
they were ordered to put their gas masks on. There are many ways to give
this order: Three honks of a horn, three percussions etc.

I too thought it'd be great to join the infantry and go to war... Now
I'd almost protest anyone joining. If someone has never been in battle,
they don't have the slightest clue. It'd take a year of writing to
describe everything. The closest thing to describing the smell is to
imagine hundreds of rotting carcasus rotting everywhere. Unless you've
been out in the wild and stumbled across a rotting animal, you probably
don't know what I mean. You could try leaving a pound of beef out on the
counter for a week and take a good huff of it.

From: "Cathy schaller" <omaschaller@>

GAS, GAS is sill used, only now it's used three times.  From the time someone yells the alarm, you have 9 seconds to don, seal, and clear your gasmask.  Any slower and you risk injury or death.  Someone was sounding the alarm.

From: "John Wainwright" <troioi@>

Just a small but relavent point. The line is Gas GAS, not Gas Gas.
John

From: Freakstomp06@

Hello, 
I have read your comments on Wilfred Owen's poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est".  I 
was wondering if you would be able to explain the poem to me a little better. 
I have read it a few times, but am not able to grasp the true meaning of it.  
I would like to know the meaning of the last two lines please.  Thank-you 
very much for your help.

From: Ozandgemfoxglove@

Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori means 'It's a sweet and seemly thing to 
die for your  country. He has used Latin as he thinks that the saying 'it is 
a sweet and seemly thing to die for your country' is old fashioned like the 
language of Latin.

From: "adam" <mr_giannetto@>

The title is ironic

From: "Jon" <warjunkie@>

You state the title comes from hoarace and means "It is sweet and
honourable to die
for one's country."
This is wrong "Dulce Et Decorum Est" means It is sweet and right.

I would also like to point out my favorite metaphor in this porm
"guttering" Guttering is the connotation of a candle flickering out.
This is also a metaphor for the soldiers death.
- warjunkie

From: "angela lebrun" <lebrun01@>

I am a year 11 student who has just completed my end-of-year Literature
exam on Wilfred Owen's poetry. I would just like to mention here that I
throughly enjoyed his work, and I would encourage those who like 'Dulce
et Decorum Est' to also look at what is one of my all time favourite
poems; 'Futility'.
- Hollie

From: slawek <slawekhey@>

Hello!!!
I'M a student from Poland. I'm desperately looking for any information and the analysis of a poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est". I foun Your address reading your comments on the poem. I'm just wondering if You are able to provide me with some information on that topis. If it is possible I'd really appreciate that.
Best wishes
Malgorzata

From: vd <vakita_15@>

hey I'm from Venezuela, and I just want to know if you ever found an analysis of the poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est". 
I really, really need the information!!! I have a paper to do! but I can't find any analysis of it....if you could help me with a web page or something like that, I will apreciate it a lot
thanks...
V.D 

From: Stephen Forbes <sjforbes@>

hey hollie- i just read something you have written in a wilfred owen website. i need to know much on my two favourite poems- dulce. . .and futility- anything you can send me?

From: "shane warne" <motheranimal@>

Hi everyone,
my name is Ryan Henrahan
the poem dulce, is mainly about women, the way i interperet this poem, is 
that i stalk my prey before i pounce, the gas represents the the very 
beautiful women in the world, basically the ones that revolve around me, my 
bitches.




-=DanG the ultimate predator=-

bye for now ladies     =)

_________________________________________________________________
SEEK: Now with over 50,000 dream jobs! Click here:   
http://ninemsn.seek.com.au?hotmail

From: "Nick Buick - Brisbanelife.com" <info@>

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To the guy who couldn't grasp the poem, basically the poet (Owen) is saying
'war is bad'. Sure we all know that now, but the relevance here as that he
wrote this in a time when people glorified war, and the cause. Which is why
he quoted the Latin saying at the end, and in his title. Which I was taught
was translated to "it is sweet and noble to die for your country".

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From: "Thomas Keaveney" <tjkeaveney@>

This is a great poem. It really captures the horrors of war as well as the 
incompetent leaders who led those brave men to their death.

From: "peter wright" <peter.wright@>

I'm an A level student and i havn't done this poem since year 9 that's
about 3 years ago, but it is one i have always remembered. It is a truly
powerful meaningful work of words. his grasp and use of the english
language is astounding and he is able to manipulate words to paint a
vivid and terrifying picture of the horrific reality of trench warfare
in the mind of the reader.

ok and for the guy who's gotta b a little bit of a nymphomaniac... you
wish, get a life and stop thinking with ur dick

From: "Gurdev Kalirai" <gk004j1383@>

it was good

From: SndrWllbnk@

good poem

From: TOxIcJeNjO@

on the dulce et decorm est you say that you use to want to join the military 
... however you didnt. yet you critcize those who want to, or protest. you say 
that you preach to them the smell of the rotting bodies, but how do you kno 
if you never were there? you read books? poems? well maybe they did to. but you 
shouldnt preach what you dont kno for sure!

From: <mabonham@>

Anyone who really wants to grasp the meaning of this poem should see the
film "Regeneration" with James Wilby,  Jonathan Pryce, and Jonny Lee Miller.
The opening sequence of the corpses in the mud and trenches of WWI says it
all.  The film, from the book by Pat Barker, fictionalizes the "treatment"
of, among others, the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen ( who meet
there) at a military mental facility in Scotland.  The poem is voiced over
during the film and at the end we see Owen's body in the canal.

From: "Ryan Clements" <stormbolt7@>

Ryan Henrahan: What the heck?  Are you some kind of stalker or something?

From: jeanjerrydavis@  Mon Oct 31 05:27:45 2005

Sexc I am, wicked this poem is




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