Wilfred Owen was an English poet who volunteered to fi ght in World War I. The terrible events he witnessed led him to write poems about its cruelty and waste of life. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is based on his personal experience of leading a group of men six miles back to base under heavy fi re and bombing. During their attempt to return to base, they were attacked with poison gas. For his leadership and bravery, he was awarded the Military Cross.
On November 1918, aged 25, Owen was killed while leading his men across the Sambre canal in France. The news of his death reached his parents on 11 November, Armistice Day (the day when both sides agreed to stop fi ghting).
What I will learn:
how a poet uses powerful language,
simile, alliteration and assonance to describe suff ering
the use of irony in a title
You will read more powerful poems on the futility (pointlessness) of war in Collection 7.
OWEN’S USE OF IRONY
The title of this poem is taken from a Latin phrase from the Roman poet, Horace: ‘Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori’: ‘It is sweet and fi tting/To die for one’s country’. Horace’s odes state that dying in battle is a brave and honourable act. Owen uses part of this phrase as the title of his poem in an ironic way: he believes this is the opposite of the truth and that it is anything but sweet and fi tting (appropriate) to die in war for one’s country.
As you read this poem, imagine this small group of exhausted men retreating from the battlefi eld in their blood-spattered uniforms, only to be attacked with poison gas.
