Dulce at Decorum Est-Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen served as a Lieutenant in the British army during the First World War, ironically
he was killed shortly before the Armistice was signed.
Wilfred Owens Dulce Et Decorum Est is a compelling poem trying to depict the helplessness
of soldiers caught in a Gas Chamber. The poet describes the general condition of the men
involved in the war, their condition after a shock of a gas attack and then describing the
effect of it on someone who lives through it.

Summary of Dulce Et Decorum Est:

First stanza The soldiers are physically and mentally exhausted, using a simile the
soldiers are compared to beggars carrying their bags. Cursing their plight, the
soldiers are sick and crippled. The battle is about to end for the day, so the soldiers
turn and begin to slog through the mud, walking back to the trenches. Many of the
men walked sleeping. Some of the soldiers had lost their boots; however, they
hobbled on with bloody feet. Everyone was crippled; without sight; exhausted; and
deaf to the bombs that were dropped behind them.
Second stanza It begins with the narrator who is a part of the experience. He too
is a soldier. During World War I, the Germans began chemical warfare by dropping
mustard gas on their enemies. It was able to get it on his face immediately. The gas
is now detected. Someone tells them to get their masks on. The soldier fumbles
around fitting his mask on just before the gas gets to him. Unfortunately, someone
does not get his mask on and inhales the gas. His body is immediately devastated by
the gas. He begins to yell, stumble, and struggle as if he is on fire.
Fourth stanza In his dream, he sees again the wagon that the mans body was
thrown into. He sees his face, and his eyes rolled back in his head. His blood gurgled
from his failed lungs. His lungs might have been cancerous. The body becomes a
mass of blisters and horrid sores. Here is what the poem has been building toward:
It is sweet and right to die for ones country. which is directly mocked by the poet.
Owenss disdain for the war and the horrors that the soldiers experienced becomes
evident throughout his poetry.
Critical Appreciation:

The poem is one of Owens anti-war poems during the First World War. Its a
combination of two sonnets, although the sparring between the two is irregular. It
resembles a French ballad structure. The broken sonnet form and the irregularity
reinforce the feeling of the other worldliness; in the first sonnet, Owen narrates the

action in the present, while the second he looks upon the scene, almost dazed,
contemplative. The rhyme scheme is traditional, and each stanza features two
quatrains of rhymed iambic pentameter with several spondaic substitutions.
Dulce is a message of sorts to a poet and civilian propagandist, Jessie Pope, who
had written several jingoistic and enthusiastic poems exhorting young men to join the
war effort. She is the friend Owen mentions near the end of his poem. The first
draft was dedicated to her, with a later revision being attested to a certain poetess.
However, the final draft eliminated a specific reference to her, as Owen wanted his
words to apply to a larger audience.
The title of the poem, which also appears in the last two lines, is Latin for, It is an
honour to die for ones country The line derives from the Roman poet Horaces
Ode 3.2. the phrase was commonly used during the World War I era, and thus would
have resonated with Owens readers. It was also inscribed on the wall of the chapel
of the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst in 1913.