[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

columnist pro patra mori

this latin phrase means it is sweet and

fitting to die for one's country how

patriotic

a roman poet named horace wrote these

lines many many years ago

the title of today's poem from wilfred

owen comes from this epic line and so we

can expect a poem about war

patriotism and certainly death

let's read the poem and then get into

the analysis

dolce at the corumest by wilfred owen

bent double like old beggars under sacks

knock kneed coughing like hags we cursed

through sludge

to learn 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

bloodshot

all went lame all blind drunk with

fatigue

death even to the hoods 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 floundering like a man in

fire or lime

dimmed through the misti 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 frost

corrupted lungs obscene as cancer bitter

as the cut of vile incurable sores on

innocent tongues my friend you would not

tell with such high zest the children

arden for some desperate glory the old

lie

dulce et de coromist pro patria mori for

context wilfred owen wrote this poem

while he was fighting in world war one

he was a british soldier and he was sent

to fight in the trenches of northern

france

he wrote this poem while he was

hospitalized after having fought in the

trenches

and so these graphic and brutal

imageries of warfare of death on the

battlefield aren't imaginations

but first-hand experiences of the poet

himself he wrote this poem when this

experience was fresh in his mind when

the horror of it was not yet faded by

time

well

time was something wilfred owen didn't

get much of as he was killed in action

at the age of 25 this soldier from the

young grave invites us into the

experience of war

if the poem sounds real it's because it

is

war is sometimes painted as a glorious

honorable thing and the old generals who

don't actually have to be out of the

battlefield as well as the political

leaders often charge the young soldiers

with grand speeches about how courageous

and great it is to kill and even die for

one's country but this poem is saying

there's nothing great nothing pretty

nothing even sensible about dying on the

battlefield

the grotesque images the language of

terror and trauma are supposed to not

only criticize those who send soldiers

into battle

not only to criticize the convention of

war itself

but also to teach us that war is a

terrible thing that we should avoid at

all costs

the speaker recounts a specific

battlefield experience as he watches his

fellow soldier die a slow and painful

death

this experience has clearly traumatized

the speaker and made it clear to him

that there is indeed nothing at all

sweet and fitting about dying for one's

country

i want you to be patient this point is

dense with imageries and metaphors

and i'll not skip over anything we'll

work through every line and come to a

complete understanding

of this masterpiece

if you're looking for a quick summary

that doesn't get into all the gritty

details

then you've clicked on the wrong video

as usual we start with the title

belcher at decorumest since the title is

referencing a poem from horus the roman

point i mentioned earlier then we have

illusion happening

this poem alludes to the older one dolce

de coromeste means it is sweet and

fitting and of course we know that this

description is ascribed to dying for

one's country

we have some irony and you can say

sarcasm happening here as the speaker

thinks the very opposite of what the

title suggests

he does not think that war or

specifically dying in war is sweet and

fitting

the title is actually challenging or

criticizing the idea that war can be

considered sweet and fitting

line 1

bent double like old beggars under facts

the speaker is painting the picture of

the soldiers in the trenches they're

bent double they're bending crouching

creeping

slowly moving through the trenches

also we can think of how they are

burdened not just by the literal socks

on their backs but also by the

responsibility and consequence of war

what about double to double over means

to bend over at the waist

so the imagery here is of soldiers who

are steeply crouched over we see a

simile

they're like old beggars

just as the old beggars in the streets

are often bent over

also sometimes with sacks on their backs

as mentioned in the line

these soldiers are bent over the sacks

that the soldiers carry are the

knapsacks of supplies that soldiers wear

the men are bent under the sacks which

gives the impression that these kit bags

are extremely heavy and the soldiers are

exhausted they can barely manage under

the heavyweight

another effect of the simile is that the

soldiers are so tired and cranky so

crammed and fatigued that they're moving

like old men

yet another effect is that war has made

the soldiers poor

this isn't talking about getting a low

salary but it means they're unable to

enjoy the richness the pleasures of life

because they are stuck fighting and

dying like animals

yet another effect is that the soldier's

youth is stolen from them and so they're

like old men war takes away the youth of

soldiers it steals their lives some of

them end up dead

so they literally die while others lose

the ability to lead a normal life

because they're traumatized by war

just like the speaker and so they

metaphorically die

i want you to see that in lines one and

two the expected image of the soldier is

subverted

what i mean is at the time and even now

british soldiers were pictured as strong

fit young men who valiantly go out to

war

for the motherland for the king

but here owen tells us that the reality

is the opposite of that

even if these men were upright and

strong to begin with

war has bent and broken them

in line two we get some images of

sickness or injury

the soldiers are knock kneed people who

are knock kneed have their knees

abnormally close together and their

ankles spread apart

here the soldiers aren't literally not

need perhaps but they're so tired so

exhausted so weak under the heavy weight

that their knees are buckling

their knees are bending

in another sense what has deformed has

disfigured them

because they have experienced war they

are no longer normal people we also see

them coughing like hands this is an

effective simile

hangs are old ugly miserable women so

again we see that their youth is gone

we also see that they are miserable

they are coughing because on the

battlefield they are dealing with dust

and debris and as we'll soon see with

toxic gas

also they might be coughing up blood

because they're terribly wounded

also we see that they are cursing

through sludge

the sludge is the heavy debris that is

difficult to walk through the muddy

earth

they are cursing because they are

terrified and exasperated they are

panicking

they are tormented

they know they could die at any second

also cursed here might suggest that the

men are cursed by being soldiers in

other words becoming a soldier fighting

for your country is a sure way to

achieve a terrible death

in this line we have a device here

called cacophony which basically means

noise

it is a noisy line with thick heavy

sounds

listen to how difficult it is to say

these words

cursed through sludge

the line itself almost sounds like

cursing

and gives us the image of how thick and

uncomfortable the sludge is for the

soldiers notice also the harsh

consonants in the lines

we have the alliterated bit sounds in

bent and vegas

we also have the sound in double we have

the sound in knock kneed coughing cursed

these harsh alliterations reflect how

severe the situation is for the soldiers

in the next line we get a sense of

direction and perspective

the soldiers turn their backs on the

haunting flares

what are the flares and why are they

haunting

the flares are the bright markers that

illuminate the battlefield

especially the enemy territory in the

war soldiers at night time would use

bright flares to light up their own

territory this prevented enemy units

from launching sneaky attacks under the

cover of darkness

the flares would expose the enemy

soldiers who were trying to sneak in the

flares here could also be the general

noises and explosions of the battlefield

either way they are haunting because

they indicate danger

turning their backs on the haunting

flares

meaning they are now heading away from

the danger and towards safety they're

heading back towards their own territory

where they might be able to rest for a

while

maybe they are outnumbered maybe they're

out of supplies

maybe they're too tired to keep fighting

maybe they're just scared for their

lives in any case you know they're

returning back to their own territory

in the next line we see that they're

moving toward their distant rest

they're trudging

trudging means walking tiredly with

heavy steps

the harsh sound of charging reminds us

of the cursed through sludge we already

know how exhausted and weighted down

these soldiers are and this word

reinforces that image

why is the rest distant

because it is far away

or maybe because they are so tired and

slow that it seems far away from them it

could also be that because the

battlefield is so dangerous

even a hundred meters can feel like a

hundred miles there's also a possible

metaphor and euphemism going on the

distant rest could mean death

death is often considered to be a sleep

arrest owen might be saying that

soldiers on the battlefield march not to

their victory not to their glory

but to their death

in the next line we see just how

exhausted these soldiers are

they're marching asleep

they haven't slept in a long time but

even while they're tired they have to

keep moving

by the way since the men aren't

literally sleeping this could be a

hyperbole the speaker is just

emphasizing how tired the soldiers are

we also hear the alliterated

sound in men marched many

this is the sound of their tired

agonizing groans

we see also that many of the men had

lost their boots so they would be

marching along the battlefield

barefooted

imagine trudging on a field of splinters

embers mud shards of grenades all while

sleepy and barefooted this whole stanza

is painting this gruesome image

the men who lost their boots limped on

agreeing with the earlier diction of

knock kneed and bent

we get the idea that some of these men

are physically unable to walk properly

some have probably lost a leg from an

explosion or from bullet wounds we see

that the men who lost their boots were

limping bloodshot as we saw in god's

grandeur to be shot means to be wearing

shoes

so through metaphor the speaker is

saying that instead of shoes these men

were wearing blood

literally their feet were covered in

blood and bruises

it is a possibility that saying the men

lost their boots might be a euphemism

that means they literally lost their

feet or legs

this makes sense when we look at the

following line

if a man loses a leg he has to limp

and of course he would be bloodshot

meaning his leg or whatever was left of

it would be covered in blood

another thing here is that being shot

isn't usually used to refer to humans

but horses

i didn't bring this up in the analysis

of god's grandeur but it is actually

important here at this point horses are

shod when you put horseshoes on them

these men are reduced to horses to

animals they're just pawns

they are expendable look at the next

part of the line

all went lame all blind

this is more hyperbole even if some of

the men were lame lame here meaning

losing an arm or leg certainly not all

of the soldiers were lame and obviously

they weren't all literally blind as the

speaker sees many things throughout the

poem

this is just hyperbole to emphasize how

injured they were how difficult it was

to move

and also how blared their eyesight might

have been

they might have been moving through

smoke and gas guest is mentioned a

little later

also it is night which means decreased

visibility we know it's night because

earlier on the soldiers could see the

flares

and you can't really see the flares in

the daytime note also that just as shot

is usually used to describe animals lame

is usually used to describe animals so

again the men are reduced to animals

owen is telling us that warfare is an

animalistic activity it is inhumane

those who fight in wars are no better

than animals

also just as animals are property of men

that is also the relationship between

governments and their soldiers not only

are they lame and blind but also drunk

and deaf

more hyperbole they aren't literally

drunk instead they're so fatigued so

tired that they're moving like drunkards

they're staggering and tumbling over

also they aren't deaf but the

battlefield is so unnoisy that they

can't hear the gas shells dropping

softly behind them

they aren't deaf

but they are deaf to this particular

sound to the hoods of gas shells

the hoot here through onomatopoeia is

the sound an owl makes it is a soft

sound isn't it we also see that the gas

shells drop softly so it seems to be a

sneak attack a quiet attack

but i don't think it's actually a sneak

attack

instead i think the battlefield is so

noisy and the soldiers are so exhausted

that they're losing touch with their

senses

and so they just can't hear the gas

shells

the enemy is attacking them with toxic

gas and they don't even realize we also

hear the sneakiness of the attack in the

alliterated sound hoots gas shells

softly

the attack came at them like a whisper

in the shadows

but in reality the gas shelves are very

loud

the soldiers don't hear them because

they're just too tired to hear anything

just a note

depending on what edition of the poem

you're reading you might find that this

particular line about the gas shells

might be different there are two other

versions that i know of but i won't get

into those if your version of the poem

is different from mine let me know in

the comments and i can do a minute

analysis on whatever version you have we

come to another stanza by now we imagine

the soldiers have covered some ground

since the gas shells are dropping behind

them and not around them it means they

are now outside of the range of the gas

shells of the artillery

so they are out of the enemy's attack

radius but they're still not yet in

their own territory

they're in this dangerous middle ground

often referred to as no man's land so

they're out of the enemy land but

they're not yet in their own land in

this stanza one of the british soldiers

realizes that they have been gassed

and he warns his fellow men gas gas

the second gas is fully capitalized to

convey the panic the urgency the

loudness of the shout which contrasts

vividly with the sneaky quietness of the

gas attack or at least the perceived

quietness as the attack as i mentioned

earlier wasn't really quiet before the

sounds of the gas shells were coming

from behind

but somehow one of the shells reached

them

maybe they thought they were completely

out of the range but somehow they were

caught by one of the shells

gas gas quick boys

the british soldier yells

since this man is calling them boys he

might have been a higher ranking officer

talking to the younger troops

so the soldiers who were asleep walking

a while ago now have to find some energy

to protect themselves from the gas the

gas is deadly and the gas masks are the

only way to defend against it

we see in the next line that the

soldiers fit the clumsy helmets onto

their heads just in time

the helmets are said to be clumsy

because they're big and heavy and

probably as the soldiers are panicking

they struggle to fit the helmets

properly we might have personification

in clumsy helmets people not things are

usually considered clumsy but now as the

soldiers are panicking and are too tired

to get the masks on quickly they're

cursing the masks as if it is the mask's

fault

they're calling the masks the helmets

clumsy

the speaker describes this quick attempt

to put on the masks as an ecstasy of

fumbling

this is a juxtaposition you could argue

that it's an oxymoron usually ecstasy is

used to describe

intense overwhelming pleasure but here

it is used alongside the word fumbling

to convey mad friends and movement

they are fumbling in the dark their

hands are shaking they're panicking we

see in the next line the beginning of

the specific tragedy that the poem

details not all of the soldiers managed

to get the masks on in time

one soldier is still yelling out and

stumbling the guest is already working

inside his lungs he cries out in terror

in fear in death

next we see a simile

the soldier who is already inhaling the

deadly gas is floundering which means

staggering he's flopping around he's

confused the simile says he's

floundering like a man in fire or lime

though we see fire and lime here the

word floundering is more appropriate to

set the scene of water as floundering is

a movement of fish out of water this

word actually foreshadows another image

that will come later on

still a man in fire or a man on fire

will certainly flounder will certainly

run and jump and scream in panic

the lime here refers to quick line a

substance that was used as a chemical

weapon to temporarily blind enemies

so here are the speakers explaining how

the gas is affecting

this particular soldier and how he is

reacting to the gas

watching the soldiers suffer in the

cloud of guests was like watching a man

on fire or a man in quick line

the next two lines give us some vivid

imagery

everything looks dim to the speaker

because of two reasons

well things might have been dim before

but two reasons make things even dimmer

now

one he's looking through the panes

through the glass of his gas mask as we

see

and two the gas has flooded the area

the gas gives off a green glow

so in this line the speaker is

describing his new perspective

everything looks dim and green because

he's looking through the glass and

because the smoky gas is so thick that

it looks like they're underwater the

speaker describes the dying man as being

under a green sea

this is the image that was foreshadowed

by floundering earlier on this is

metaphor because it's not literally a c

but actually guess

the speaker continues with another

related metaphor and says that he saw

the man drowning

before we move down let's reflect on

some devices and also some formulated

techniques used in this stance these are

things you can comment on when writing

an essay

this stanza uses a whole lot of imagery

we get auditory imagery in the yelling

and we get kinesthetic imagery meaning

imagery of movement in fumbling

stumbling floundering we also get lots

of visual imagery as well we see the gas

as dim and misty and green and thick

we also have some tactile imagery

imagery of touch

in this case imagery of pain

we have the fire and lime and also the

clumsy helmets

what is the effect of all this imagery

well it gives us a clear picture of how

terrible how terrifying how gruesome the

situation was for the soldiers we can

clearly imagine the scene of this

soldier suffering and his fellow

soldiers struggling to save themselves

another thing that stands out in this

line is its punctuation

we see three exclamation points which by

themselves emphasize the panic and

urgency in the shouts

we also see two dashes which among other

functions adds to the chaos in the

stanza as the words on the page are made

to appear even messier

we also have some amazing internal rhyme

in fumbling stumbling floundering

these words all have the same

connotation of mad movements of

confusion the internal rhyme here makes

the three words stand out on the page

thus highlighting the confusion and the

chaos which the soldiers find themselves

in

finally we see so many continuous verbs

in the stanza meaning verbs ending in

ing

we just mentioned fumbling stumbling

floundering

we also see fitting yelling and drowning

the overabundance of these continuous

verbs indicate that the stanza the scene

is jam-packed with actions many things

are happening at the same time there is

this dizzying confusion that you're

actually pulled into actually the next

stanza continues this pattern it reads

in all my dreams before my helpless

sight he plunges at me guttering choking

drowning we see here ptsd

post-traumatic stress disorder a

psychological condition that many

soldiers develop after seeing terrible

things on the battlefield in these lines

the ptsd takes the form of nightmares

very vivid nightmares maybe even

hallucinations the speaker sees not in

some but in all of his dreams the same

man who we saw die on the battlefield

the soldier in the speaker's dreams

plunges at him he jumps at him for him

to save his life the man is said to be

guttering choking drowning

the speaker sees his friend calling out

to him in these dreams we know about

choking and drowning and these tie into

the last line of the last stanza

but what is guttering together means to

flicker and burn on steadily

like a candle in the wind of course

through metaphor it is his life that is

flickering

not a flame

the reference to a fire here also

connects with the fire reference in the

previous stanza

why do these two lines get a stanza all

for themselves

because of how traumatic this experience

was for the speaker

also notice that we shift from the past

to the present tense we're no longer

talking about what the speaker saw on

the battlefield
we're talking about what he's currently

seeing what he currently sees in his

dreams he's presently affected by the

trauma

the message is war has long lasting

effects

even long after a war ends its effects

will go on for many years to come

another shift that this tensor makes is

that it moves the poem from narration to

reflection before the speaker was

telling us of things he saw and felt

now we are seeing how it affects the

speaker's mind

look at the word all in the first line

of this short standard

either the speaker is saying literally

every single dream he has had since the

war has been of this soldier he saw

dying

or he might be using hyperbole to

emphasize how frequently the nightmares

occur

look at the word helpless

it means the speaker cannot escape these

dreams or hallucinations so we know that

on the battlefield the man who was dying

of gas was helpless but now the speaker

is helpless
maybe he takes some kind of medicine in

an effort to make the nightmare stop

maybe he has been doing therapy but the

word helpless

means no matter what he does

the nightmares just won't go away the

effects of war are permanent

another meaning might be that no matter

how many times the man calls out to him

in his nightmares he can't save him

he can't help him this is because the

real soldier is long dead and these are

just dreams

perhaps the speakers feels guilty that

he did not or could not help his dying

comrade

heading into the last stanza the speaker

invites us to share his experience with

him

what better way to understand the horror

of war than to be there yourself

if you look at the last stanza in its

entirety you will see that it is one

long sentence

he's saying

in summary if you the reader could blah

blah blah blah blah

you would not tell the old lie that it

is good and fitting to die for one's

country
so the whole stanza is a conditional

statement

that is meant to convince the reader in

a resolute way

that if they could only experience war

if you could actually live through what

i lived through

if you could see what i saw

you would never in your right mind

encourage anyone to fight in a war

let's break down this long sentence

let's take it from the top

in the first two lines the speaker is

saying

if you could follow behind the wagon

that they threw the dying soldier in if

only you could have been there with the

speaker in his dreams to see this near

dead man in the wagon the dreams are

said to be smothering to smother someone

means to suffocate them remember the man

died of suffocation because of the

deadly gas but the smothering in this

line isn't happening to the dying man

it's happening to the speaker himself

the dreams are smothering him

the nightmares the trauma the memories

are slowly killing him

the word peace here means to walk

quickly also look at how they roughly

handled the man's body they flung him

into the wagon

of course we understand that they had no

time to be gentle

this highlights the fact that even in

death

soldiers of war are treated inhumanely

with no consideration no feeling no

respect

the soldier is now just some load to

carry like a lump of meat

there is no honor or dignity

dying in war is not an honorable death

this ghast man

will very soon die

but at this point he's not yet dead

yet they fling him into the wagon as if

he's already dead

the speaker continues in the next line

to say if you could watch the white eyes

writhing in his face

what grotesque imagery

here the soldier's eyes just before he

dies perhaps roll back in his head

until only the white part is visible

what a nightmarish picture

look at the word writhing this means

twisting contorting so his eyes are all

over the place

as he struggles to breathe his final

breaths his eyes are twisting and

straining like that of someone who is

demon possessed

this is an unnatural and frightening

image to the speaker he's saying if only

you could see this

by the way

technically eyes can't rise

right is a wiggling movement that a

person does

but here the eyes are writhing so if

you're counting devices you can call

that personification

in the next line the speaker is saying

if only we could watch his hanging face

like a devil's sick of sin

this is a brutal brutal line

first of all how could his face be

hanging it means his face is almost

falling off

also his face looks like that of a man

who has just been hanged it is drab

lifeless it is sagging

so gruesome so grotesque and frightening

is this image that the speaker uses a

wicked simile

he says the soldier's face is like a

devil's sick of sin

we even hear the devilish hiss in the

consonated

sound listen

his hanging face like a devil's sick of

sin the dying man's face

is like the face of a devil who is sick

of sin can you imagine a sin so evil

that even the devil can't handle it

even the devil is frightened disgusted

by this sight so first he said if we

could walk

then he said if we could see

now he's saying if we could hear

at every jolt the blood come gargling

from the froth corrupted lungs

my goodness how did owen paint such a

freakishly hideous picture

there is so much dreadful imagery here

the dying soldier would often jolt as

his heart pumped its final beats

the jokes could be coughing as well the

drill thing might also be caused by the

wagon hitting bumps and jerking as they

push it over the bumpy road

either way at every jolt blood comes

gargling from the man's lungs we can

really hear the nasty sound of blood

with the word gargling

the word with its onomatopoeic sound

provides a very vivid auditory imagery

the man's lungs is described as froth

corrupted the froth here is the white

foam that forms at his mouth as he dies

so we see the form of saliva and toxins

mixed gorilla with blood gushing and

gargling from his lungs the speaker in

the next line says this whole scene is

obscene as cancer and bitter as the cut

of vile incurable sores on innocent

tongues

so we have two similes here one short

one and a long one first the short one

says that the scene of the soldier's

death is obscene as cancer

something that is obscene is morally

offensive repulsive lewd

why is cancer considered to be obscene

cancer is terrible yes but obscene what

does cancer have to do with morality

well the thing about cancer is that it

attacks anyone it kills at random and at

the time the poem was written the

disease was utterly incurable such a

disease can be considered to be evil

obscene in a sense

similarly the soldier's death is obscene

because just as cancer randomly kills

people this soldier's death is pointless

it is without good reason

just like cancer war is morally wrong

and the dying on the battlefield is

morally wrong let's go to the more

difficult simile

the speaker here says that this man's

condition this man's death is bitter

of course when something is bitter

metaphorically it means it is difficult

to accept it makes you upset it makes

you angry

there's an interesting connection i want

you to make here the statement that the

poem is attacking

as we see in the title and in the final

lines

is that it is sweet and fitting to die

for one's country

what's the opposite of sweet

bitter

here owen is saying it's not sweet to

die for your country

it is instead bitter

okay back to the line we see that this

man's state is as bitter as the [ __ ] of

vile incurable sores on innocent tongues

as usual owen provides imagery that is

meant to gross us all the way out

the cud is food that is brought back up

from the stomach into the mouth of

certain animals like cows

these animals chew the food a second

time

so the blood that this soldier is

vomiting up as he dies

is not just bitter as cud but bitter as

the cud of vile incurable sores how

magnificently disgusting

imagine if you can stomach it nasty

sores on the tongues of cows

they are oozing with pus and vile green

juices and on top of that mixed up in

all this is the food that is brought

back up from the stomach to be chewed a

second time

so just as cows regurgitate food to be

chewed and swallowed a second time the

blood that was in this soldier's body is

brought back up into and out through the

mouth but the tongues that have these

sores

are innocent

of course we aren't really talking about

cows here the cud and the sores are

talking about the man's condition as he

dies from the gas the innocent tongue

speaks to the innocence of the soldier

the soldier does not deserve to die like

this no one deserves to die like this we

have a dash at the end of the line which

marks the second part of the long

conditional sentence

so the speaker in the stanza is saying

if a

then b

now we're getting to the b part so

basically he's saying if you were in the

speaker's dreams to see this horrible

death of this innocent sword then you my

friend would not tell with such highest

meaning with such enthusiasm

the children ardent for some desperate

glory the old lie

these lines seem confusing

but i'll break them down

so the speaker is talking to whoever he

calls his friend it could be a

particular person it could be whomever

listens to him whomever reads the poem

it could be an actual friend of his but

what do we know about this friend of his

we see that his friend makes a habit of

telling children the old lie

of course the old lie is the same latin

phrase that we started out with which

means it is sweet and fitting to die for

one's country who does the speaker's

friend like to tell this lie to he tells

it to the children who are ardent or who

are desperate for some glory ardent

means passionate full of exuberance full

of vigor and energy so we have some

children who are high spirited who are

willing

these same children are desperate for

glory

they want to be great they want to be

heroes

they have something to prove so in a

sense this stanza is saying

if you could really understand how

terrible war is

you wouldn't encourage these young

impressionable minds to go on the

battlefield and fight gloriously you

wouldn't charge them to run to their

death

and tell them that it is a great honor

to fight and to kill and to die for

their country

many of the older people who tell the

youth of the glory and greatness of war

have never actually been in a war they

pass on this maxim that it's a good

thing to represent your country as a

soldier without even knowing what it

means to be a soldier

note that even though the speaker says

children here he might be referring to

army recruits

or those who are considering joining the

army

in the speaker's mind because they are

young and inexperienced they are like

children

they are yet innocent this ties back to

the innocent tongues from earlier on

before we look at the poems form let's

look at a few words in these final lines

look at my friend here near the end the

speaker hates the idea that people are

sending youths onto the battlefield to

die

so why would he call someone who is

perpetuating this ideology who is

perpetuating this lie his friend

i think he's being bitterly sarcastic

anyone who is encouraging young men to

die horrible deaths is certainly not the

speaker's friend

i think he is talking to the government

which continually recruits soldiers and

sends them to die

in fact when this point was written a

hundred years ago the government was

actively and forcefully engaging in

military propaganda to get young men to

enlist into the army

they were basically advertising the

military as a way to achieve glory and

many young men fell for the trap

there is still another way to read the

word friend

just as the speaker was himself blind to

the horrors of war he is being

sympathetic to those who just like he

was

are ignorant

of the horrors of war the reality of war

look at the words

desperate glory this is an oxymoron

isn't it how can glory be desperate

desperation especially in this usage is

talking about those final efforts to

escape death

a disparate soldier is one who is

surrounded and outnumbered under a

barrage of enemy fire pinned down by an

invisible sniper

i think the word glory is used

sarcastically as the speaker actually

understands that there is no glory at

all

in warfare

the children expect to find glory on the

battlefield but the speaker knows that

they will only find desperation finally

look at how the word lie is capitalized

why is this done

to bring emphasis to the fact that even

though this idea of glorious warfare has

been passed down for countless

generations as a truth

it is actually a lie

in fact this lie even caught the speaker

as he himself did enlist into the army

it is only after having first-hand

experience of war did he learn the truth

of war

before learning this truth of war he was

blind deaf drunk asleep naive

these descriptions are used in stanza

one to describe how the soldiers trudge

through the sludge

but they also describe in a broad sense

how the speaker and his comrades just

had no idea what they were getting into

when they signed up for the army young

people today like to talk about being

woke

these soldiers were asleep

they were blind to the realities of war

death to the truths of war drunk with

the desperation for glory

at the end we see word for word what

this lie is

dulce et de quora mist pro

it is sweet and fitting to die for one's

country

note how the speaker gives us the

original latin at the end instead of the

translation

this is to highlight just how far back

this idea is coming from how well

ingrained in humanity it is it is coming

from the age of latin hundreds of years

ago this video has already been long but

we can't stop here

we have to look quickly at the poem's

form first let's look at the stanzas and

how each play a part in the poem's

development stanza one sets the scene it

introduces the battlefield the

atmosphere of exhaustion fatigue pain

misery death

in stanza 2 the scene shifts from the

slow language burdened movements of the

men to a quick chaos of frenzy

also the story zones in on the suffering

and death of a particular soldier

the third stanza is strange as it seems

as if it were accidentally broken off

the second stanza it's just two lines

and it is there to emphasize the mental

the psychological impact of war on the

speaker this is the stanza in which we

switch from the past to the present

tense

and then the last stanza invites the

reader into the poem

it takes us into the gore and the horror

of war we have looked at sonnets in

previous lessons those poems have 14

lines this poem is not a sonnet but

interestingly it has exactly twice the

number of lines as a sonnet coming in at

28 lines we know from previous lessons

that italian sonnets or petrarchan

sonnets are divided into two parts

the first part presenting a question

and the second part presenting an answer

could this poem by wilfred owen actually

be a double sonnet

i think so

the first fourteen lines act as part one

and they're all written in past tense

they narrate what the speaker saw

the second fourteen lines are part two

and they're written in present tense

so do we have the same question and

answer or problem and solution format as

we always see in italian sonnets yes we

do the problem presented in the first

half is that of the glorification of war

the speaker is not comfortable with the

fact that even the war is so terrible

many people sell it as if it is this

glorious experience

and what is the solution to this problem

the solution is

in order for people to stop talking

about how great and glorious war is

they need to be made to experience it in

the way that the speaker forces us to

experience it with him the only way we

will learn to despise war is if we come

to really understand what it is

as a meter we have the iambic pentameter

for many lines but also many lines don't

follow that meter

as for rhyme scheme we have alternate

rhymes from beginning to end a perfect

rhyme scheme

not a single exception i would go into

the meteor and rhyme scheme but i think

we've already covered the most important

aspects of this point you can check out

the additional lessons on rhyme scheme

and meter to get a better understanding

of how these elements can help to shape

a poem but i won't go deeper into it for

this video since the analysis has

already been so long

the main theme of the poem is the horror

of war and also the perpetuated lie that

war is glorious
we also have themes like death

nationalism patriotism trauma

and expectation versus reality

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