Notes on “Dulce et Decorum Est”

Background: “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a famous, even canonical war poem

written by the poet and combat veteran Wilfred Owen. First published in 1920, it
delivers an uncompromising portrait of both the tedium of war and one – but only
one – of its horrors, as well as its aftermath, both for the subject of the poem (the
author and the reader) and the object (the gassed man). The horrors gas warfare
during WW1 are graphically presented, as they are the major point of Owen’s
argument. Since its publication, the poem has won immense popularity on
account of its realistic presentation of the brutalities of war.

Poetry as Criticism of War:  As a combat veteran, Owen personally experienced or

witnessed at first hand the suffering and pain that he wrote about. By depicting the death
and destruction caused by the war so unflinchingly, he declares, categorically, that war is not
heroic; that, in the words of American civil war general William Tecumseh Sherman “war is
hell.”

In the first part of the poem, he describes the dull monotony of a specific event. Wounded
and/or exhausted soldiers are in the process of being removed (the military term is rotated)
from the battlefield when there is a gas attack, and the speaker writes of his own
experiences before switching in the second part to a graphic description of the helplessness
of a coughing, choking and dying soldier. In this section, despite its horrors, he seems
psychologically immoveable from the incident as it constantly haunts him, even (perhaps
especially) in his sleep. The poem then shifts to its third and final part: a scornful, bitter
reproach to those who encouraged so many millions to enlist and the creed they had
embedded in the minds of so many young men and their families.

Major Theme: The misery and horrors of war are the major themes of the poem. The poet
incorporates these themes with the help of appropriate imagery that says that those who
have actually lived through these experiences will never glorify war. He negates the
traditional glorious descriptions of war and its nature by presenting the brutal, graphic
realities of the battlefield. These themes are foregrounded in powerful phrases such as “old
beggars under sacks,” “haunting flares”, “blood-shod”,” guttering, choking, drowning”.

Analysis of the Literary Devices used in “Dulce et Decorum Est”

Literary devices are used to bring both clarity and depth to a text, making them both
appealing and meaningful. Owen has also employed the following literary devices in the
poem:
1. Alliteration
is the use of the same consonant sounds in the same line such as the /s/ sound in
“But someone still was yelling out and stumbling” and the /w/ sound in “And watch
the white eyes writhing in his face”.

2. Simile
Is the use of “as” or “like” to compare one thing with something else in order to
describe an object or a person. A very simple device, it is not much admired by
contemporary critics as it is, by its nature, self-explanatory: e.g. ” Bent double, like
old beggars under sacks”, “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags”, “like a man in fire or
lime” and “like a devil’s sick of sin.”

3. Metaphor
Is the making of less direct comparisons than similes between two unlike things to
create a more challenging and therefore memorable image. This poem rather few
metaphors, the obvious one being “Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots.” in
line seven. It presents the physical state of the men.

4. Onomatopoeia
Is the use of the words which imitate the natural sounds of the things. Owen has
used the words “hoot”, “knock” and “gargling” in the poem to evoke the sounds made
by shells, the soldiers’ weary legs and the mouth of the dying soldier.

5. Consonance:
Is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line such as the /r/ sound in “Come
gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs.”

6. Synecdoche
It is a figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole. For example,
the word “sight” in the second stanza represents both the speaker’s physical vision
of the event and his psychology.

7. Imagery:
Imagery is a means of making readers perceive things with all of the senses; sight,
sound, touch, taste and smell. Although Owen has used rather few metaphors,
imagery is almost constantly employed to recreate the physical sensations, all
negative, of a soldiers’ war: “old beggars under sacks”, “had lost their boots”, “His
hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” and “white eyes.”
 8. Assonance: 
Is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line, such as the /o/ sound in “Of vile,
incurable sores on innocent tongues.”

9. Oxymoron: 
Is a literary term for a combination of words that are either inherently contradictory
or at least incongruous: e.g. ”desperate glory”.

A careful literary analysis shows whether a poet has skillfully used literary techniques to
project arguments and experiences into the minds of the reader. Good use of the right
devices has made this poem a thought-provoking piece for readers and educators for the
last 100 years.

Analysis of Poetic Devices in “Dulce et Decorum Est”

All poetic devices are literary devices, but a few are used only in poetry. Here is the analysis
of some of the poetic devices used in this poem.

 Structure: The poem is a combination of two sonnets. In the first sonnet the poet
describes his experiences of the war whereas in the second sonnet he becomes
analytic and attempts to correct the outlook of others about the war.
 Sonnet: A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem, usually about love, in which a single idea
recurs throughout the poem.
 Rhyme scheme: The entire poem follows the ABAB, CDCD rhyme scheme in iambic
pentameter.

 Iambic Pentameter is a type of meter consisting of five iambs. A typical example in

this poem is, “Bent Double, like old beggars under”
Argument Definition
An argument is the main statement of a poem, essay, short story or a novel, which usually
appears as an introduction, or a point on which the writer will develop his work in order to
convince his readers.

Literary fiction, as opposed to _______ fiction does not only seek to entertain its readers, it
also intends to (re)shape their outlook. An argument is not only an introduction, but it also
draws the reader’s focus to an idea or theme that will be made clear gradually.

As in daily life (e.g. ’the internet is a bad invention’), a writer will state with varying degrees of
directness what she believes to be true, and then methodically build an argument around
the theme and the plot or structure to persuade others to believe it to be true as well.

Famous Examples
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by
anybody else, these pages must show.”

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune,
must be in want of a wife”
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice 

“How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the
South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great
Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent
Marinere came back to his own Country.”
S. T. Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner
(an argument appended his argument at the beginning of his narrative poem Rime of the
Ancient Mariner)