WILFRED OWEN:

Dulce et Decorum Est

Like the author of All Quiet on the Western Front, Wilfred Owen was also a footsoldier in World War I. Unlike Remarque, who was German, Owen was English. Even though Owen was on the "winning side" in the war, he expressed the disillusion that many Westerners experienced because of the war. Owen, a young but renowned poet, wrote Dulce et Decorum Est while fighting in the trenches. He was also killed just days before the Armistice between the belligerent powers went into effect.

Points to Ponder:

--. How effective is Owen in representing the nature of war in the trenches?
-- What does the title mean? By using this title, what is Owen criticizing?

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs
And towards our distant rest began the trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines [German artillery shells] that dropped 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 flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowing.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could place
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 froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest,
To children ardent for some desperate glory.
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Source: Wilfred Owen, Poems, ed. Siegfried Sassoon (London: Chatto and Windus, 1920).

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