poem context

what was the purpose of the poem’s creation

to counteract the propaganda/people (like the dulce et decorum est phrase) saying war was great using the realities of the war - a chlorine gas attack and the trauma

Owen quote

“Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.”

dulce et decorum est pro patria mori backstory

Latin phrase from the Roman poet Horace who wrote patriotic odes, “It is sweet and fitting (dulce et decorum est) to die for one’s country (pro patria mori)”, used as a drinking toast at the time among the higher echelons of society and its use could be a dig at them

what is the poem’s backstory

recounts a chlorine gas attack wilfred owen would’ve experienced in France in 1917, written while he was being treated in Craig Lockhart Hospital for shell shock

Wilfred Owen life

Born in 1893, enlisted in 1915 after visiting the wounded in hospital, injured and sent home in 1917, returned to the front line in 1918, Nov 4 1918 - killed by machine gun fire just one week from the end of wwi, parents learned of his death the same day the war ended (Nov 11)

stanza 1 analysis

soldiers were weak (similes - old beggars, hags), first person plural (we), soldiers never ‘walk’ (cursed, trudge, marched, limped), flares could haunt the soldiers/personification (haunting flares) rejecting the war (turned our backs), euphemism (our distant rest - death), visceral imagery (blood-shod - shoes made of blood, drunk - stumbling around), anaphora (all - no one can escape from war), juxtaposition/irony (hoots/softly - shells containing chlorine)

stanza 2 analysis

Language features: speech, personification, present tense, simile, metaphor, first person singular

speech (panicked, short sentences), boys used instead of men - innocence, personification (clumsy helmets/ecstasy of fumbling - hard to put on), present tense (yelling, stumbling - experience it with him), simile (like a man in fire or lime - the soldier dissolving and decomposing, green - chlorine gas was green), metaphor (drowning - overwhelming amount), first person singular (I)

stanza 3 analysis

all his dreams - time and distance from what’s happened/a memory that never ends or leaves, guttering - candle going out

stanza 4 analysis

Language features: second person, evocative imagery, simile, sibilance, alliteration, auditory imagery, metaphor

second person (you - people/propaganda encouraging men to go to war), evocative imagery (smothering - fire and depriving of air, flung - carelessness, eyes writhing), simile (a devil’s sick of sin [sibilance/s alliteration, hissing?] - a devil’s face full of sin/gross, cancer, cud - animal), auditory imagery (gargling, froth-corrupted lungs), metaphor (incurable sores), innocent

stanza 4.5 analysis

irony (my friend - bitter and angry), children (innocence, call back to boys), zest - excitement, Lie (personified through capital, taught to said children)

repeating themes throughout the poem

fire, loss of air, no honour/strength, young and innocent men, irony/bitterness