Dolce et decorum est

In this essay I am going to be analysing how Wilfred Owen uses language to convey the horror and pity of war in, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”. Owen wrote, “Dulce Et Decorum Est” in October 1917. The poem describes the soldiers returning from the front for a period of rest. They are all exhausted and look ragged. They hear the gas shells trying to find their range but are too lethargic to worry about them. Then suddenly the enemy find their range and the shells hit them. One man fails to fit his gas mask in time and is gassed. Owen, as the officer in charge, cannot help him when he comes towards him for assistance.The man chokes to death in a slow agonising torture. His dying body is “flung” on a wagon and the soldiers have to march behind and watch his tormented body spewing up blood “from the froth corrupted lungs”. Owen then asks his reader if this is a patriotic and heroic death or if it is a lie to say “it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for your country.

Wilfred Owen was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare contrasted with the public perception of war at the time and the patriotic poems written by earlier war poets. …………………..

I think the poem is extremely effective in conveying the horror of war as it is vivid and moving. It also uses alot of powerful description to help convey the horror of war. It tells the reality of war not what everybody believed war to be.

The title, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ is from the quote ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est pro patria mori.’ ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est pro patria mori.’ is a line from the Roman lyrical poet, Horace’s third book of Odes. In English, the line means, “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.” This suggests to the reader that the poem is going to be patriotic and all about why it is great to die for your country, like all the other poems during that time. However, as you find out