‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is a poem by the British poet Wilfred Owen, drafted at Craiglockhart War

Hospital near Edinburgh in 1917. Wilfred Owen wrote it following his experiences fighting in the
trenches in northern France during World War I. The very title of Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est”
alludes to the Latin phrase “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”. This phrase translates to “It is sweet
and proper to die for your country”. After reading the poem, it becomes clear that the title is ironical
and Owen is really arguing completely against the phrase as he calls it “the old Lie” , as seen in line 27.
The imagery he uses throughout the poem completely supports this argument as anything from “sweet
and proper”. In the poem he is, in effect, saying that it is anything but sweet and proper to die for one's
country such as the hideous war that eventually took the lives of over 17 million people.

Owen’s poetic structure enables each stanza to focus on different aspects of the war.

1. The first stanza focuses on the physical description of the soldiers. "Bent double, like old
beggars under sacks" the author uses this simile to convey the comparison between soldiers to
beggars. Owen compares the men to old, ugly women. They have lost their youth and with it
their potency and masculinity. The initial rhythm is slightly broken iambic pentameter until line
five when commas and semi-colons and other punctuation reflect the disjointed efforts of the
men to keep pace. Owen subverts idealistic views about war and presents a vivid
representation of the reality of war. Owen is haunted by his experiences of war and uses his
emotions to reflect it in this poem. The term "blood-shod" which suggests the trauma of war,
has intoxicated the soldiers. The use of the metaphor "drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the
hoots". presents the poor physical state of the men shows how the soldiers are fatigued and
injured but still push on. It creates a visual image of the soldier’s physical state. The use of
onomatopoeia in this line further creates auditory imagery. Another way Owen uses imagery to
convey his message is seen through the words “lame”, “deaf”, “clumsy”. These words convey
the reality that these are helpless soldiers who are being dehumanized as their physical sense is
slipping away with the war.

2. The second stanza focuses on a toxic gas attack to the soldiers. This is represented through the
first line. The use of repetition, Gas! GAS!’, which is also capitalized on the second use, jolts us
into the awareness of the terror and horror of the attack. Owen description changes to dramatic
action in the second stanza, with an order of warning and command evoking imagery. One
soldier gets caught and left behind. He's too slow to put on his gas mask and helmet, which
would have saved his life by filtering out the toxins. "An ecstasy of fumbling," the poet writes.
The ecstasy is used here in the sense of a trance-like frenzy as the men hurriedly put on their
helmets. The simile And floundering like a man in fire or lime" is used by the poet to emphasize
the soldier’s suffering and agony which is likened to burning in a fire or lime. Lime is a strong
alkali which burns the skin as does flame; .‘As under a green sea’ . This evokes the reality of
drowning. The ‘dim’ image seen through ‘thick green light’ may be the effect of the gas but may
also refer to the fact that Owen is seeing the man through the eye-piece of his own gas mask.
 3. This stanza brings out the personal and psychological effects of the war on the poet. The
speaker sees the soldier consumed by gas as a drowning man, as if he were underwater. “As
under a green sea, I saw him drowning” The soldier is not actually drowning. Rather, the poet is
using hyperbole here to emphasize the man’s suffering and his panicked reaction to the poison
gas. Owen chose the word "guttering" to describe the tears streaming down the face of the
unfortunate soldier, a symptom of inhaling toxic gas. It also adds to the overall negative tone of
the poem. Since it is written in the present tense, it indicates that the poet is haunted every
night by the scenes from the war, such as the death of the soldier described in the 2 nd stanza
and that these dreams never fade. The speaker, who has survived—perhaps for a moment,
perhaps the entire war—is permanently scarred by this trauma for however long his life will last.

4. The final stanza brings out a vivid description of the soldiers. The descriptions become more
intense as the drowning man is disposed of on a cart. All the speaker can do is compare the
suffering to a disease with no known cure. The final image - sores on a tongue - hints at what the
dying soldier himself might have said about the war and the idea of a glorious death. ‘like a
devil’s sick of sin’ l.20.The implications for pain and loathing here are dark. The man’s face is
compared to that of a devil, who is itself horrified. ‘Obscene as cancer’ l.23. Owen presents us
with a short brutal comparison. Like cancer the killer, the man’s blood is something which
should not to be seen. It is as offensive to the sight as is death by drowning in poison gas. ‘bitter
as the cud. Owen uses a farming image (‘cud’ the half-digested pasture chewed by cattle) that
equates humans with animals and further portrays The unpleasant image of dying. Owen widens
the issue of romanticizing war by confronting the reader, especially the people far away from
the war. He suggests that if they too could experience what he had witnessed, they would not
be so quick to praise those who die in action. They would be lying to future generations if they
thought that death on the battlefield was sweet. The last four lines are thought to have been
addressed to a Jessie Pope, a children's writer and journalist at the time, whose published book
Jessie Pope's War Poems included a poem titled The Call, an encouragement for young men to
enlist and fight in the war.

Owen has successfully used a lot of imageries to create a horrific picture of

the realities of war and the pain that it caused to the surviving soldiers. While
Owen’s argument is strong, he succeeds in fighting against the thought that “it
is sweet and fitting to die for your country”