Wilfred Owen War Poetry Analysis

Comprehensive vocabulary and key literary concepts from lecture notes analyzing Wilfred Owen's WWI poems 'Dulce et Decorum Est' and 'The Next War'.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

A Latin phrase translating to 'It is sweet and fitting to die for your country' (or 'It's sweet and honourable to die for one's country').

Craiglockhart War Hospital

The war hospital in Edinburgh where Wilfred Owen stayed in 1917 while recovering from shell shock, met Siegfried Sassoon, and wrote 'Dulce et Decorum Est' and 'The Next War'.

Siegfried Sassoon

A fellow poet who met Wilfred Owen at Craiglockhart War Hospital and encouraged him to write his war poetry.

Poetic Structure of 'Dulce et Decorum Est'

Utilizes uneven length stanzas, an alternating rhythm scheme (ABABCDCD), loose iambic pentameter, and enjambment to mirror a soldier's chaotic, exhausting, relentless, and ever-changing experience of warfare.

WWI Draft and Propaganda Context

In WWI, there was initially no draft; men were completely untrained and unaware, pushed to enlist primarily by government propaganda.

Stanza 1 Theme of 'Dulce et Decorum Est'

A demonstration of pure exhaustion and mind-numbing misery; it depicts miserable soldiers as the 'living dead' rather than men driven by purpose or thrilled by battle.

'Bent double, like old beggars under sacks' / 'like hags'

Similes used by Owen to dismantle traditional images of strong, courageous soldiers, comparing young fit men to poor, unrespected 'beggars' and ugly old 'hags' to depict how war breaks them.

Caesura in 'Dulce et Decorum Est'

A sudden structural pause used for emphasis within the line to highlight the harsh conditions and suffering of young soldiers.

'Knock-kneed'

Alliteration used in Stanza 1 that adds images of physical deformity and mimics the sound of bones striking against each other as soldiers struggle to hold themselves up.

'Drunk with fatigue'

A metaphor depicting soldiers whose sensory functions shut down from horror, creating an image of men stumbling as if intoxicated.

'Five-Nines'

5.4-inch (or 5.9-inch) gas-shell artillery dropped behind the marching soldiers.

'Blood-shod'

A term derived from shoeing horses ('shod'), combining Owen's view of soldiers being dehumanized and treated like animals as they march through mud with shoes covered in blood.

'The Next War'

A poem written by Wilfred Owen in Craiglockhart War Hospital and sent as a warning to his 17-year-old brother Colin to reveal the horrors of war and prevent him from enlisting.

Hybrid Sonnet Form in 'The Next War'

A 1914 sonnet combining Italian and English structures, subverting the traditional association of sonnets with love and romance by portraying Death as a soldier's familiar companion.

Personification of Death in 'The Next War'

Representing Death as an unbrothered, familiar companion to soldiers rather than a terrifying enemy, showing how soldiers become numb to mortality.

'War's a Joke for me and you'

An epigraph quote by Siegfried Sassoon used in 'The Next War' to establish bitter irony, emphasizing that war is not taken seriously until nightmares come true.

'Out there we've walked quite friendly up to death'

A line establishing a remote sense of setting ('out there') and using personification to show that Death is well-known and familiar to trench soldiers.

'Eaten with him, cool and bland'

A line from 'The Next War' that uses the juxtaposition of Death with friendly dining to humanise Death as an everyday companion.

'Green thick odour'

Olfactory imagery in 'The Next War' serving as an allusion to the chlorine gas attacks described in 'Dulce et Decorum Est'.

'An ecstasy of fumbling'

An unusual use of 'ecstasy' (typically associated with intense joy) to portray the sudden, desperate panic of soldiers clumsily fitting protective gas helmets just in time.

'As under a green sea, I saw him drowning'

A simile shifting perspective to inside the gas mask, comparing the thick green light of chlorine gas to an underwater drowning experience.

'Guttering, choking, drowning'

Onomatopoeic and violent verbs describing the rapid, uncoordinated agony of a gas victim; 'guttering' compares the dying soldier to a flickering candle about to go out.

'Flound'ring like a man in fire or lime'

A simile comparing gas victims' erratic movements to a man burning in fire or quicklime, referencing lime poured over dead bodies to reduce smell and its chemical dissolving effects.

'In all my dreams'

A phrase in Stanza 3 of 'Dulce et Decorum Est' indicating how the PTSD from witnessing a comrade's agonizing death haunts the speaker endlessly.

'We laughed, knowing that better men would come'

Repetition showing bitter detachment among soldiers who foresee an ongoing, tragic cycle of conflict involving future generations of 'better men' and 'greater wars'.

'He wars on Death, for lives, not men / For flags'

Owen's statement that a soldier's true enemy in the trenches is Death itself rather than opposing soldiers or national flags, rejecting national pride and the glorification of war.

Shared Humanity of Soldiers

The realization in Owen's poetry that opposing soldiers are not the true enemy, as all fighters share common experiences of suffering and fear of death.