Dulce et Decorum Est was written in 1916, at the height of WWI and following two years of brutal and bloody trench warfare.
This date is very important, because of what happened between 1914 (Brooke wrote The Soldier) and 1916 (Owen wrote Dulce).
This poem is an excellent example of how the mood and tone of the poem can be different. The MOOD in Dulce is definitely one of sadness: a man dies in the poem.
However, the TONE of the poem is angry as Owen vents his frustration on those responsible for deceitful propaganda.
If you've already studied the poem, write down as much as you can under the following headings, before watching the video.
If you don't know the poem at all, then use the same headings to prepare your page for what you will learn.
•Content (what is the poem about?):
•Context (what was happening at the
time?):
•Language:
1.
2.
3.
•Structure:
1.
2.
•Poet’s ideas/aim/thoughts:
•Effect on the reader:
Dulce et Decorum Est
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 gas shells dropping softly 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 flound’ring 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.
By Wilfred Owen
Dulce et Decorum Est
