Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen

[kellyrfineman]

After yesterday's poem by Rupert Brooke, "The Soldier", I thought I'd move on to Wilfred Owen's famous war poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est". The title of the poem comes from one of Horace's Odes, written in Lattin (of course): Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which is quoted in full at the end of the poem. The translation for the Latin is,

Comments

[lrigd]

It's a beautiful poem!

[kellyrfineman]

It really is, even in its description of the horrors of war. No wonder it's so popular!

[kellyrfineman]

Exactly. His imagery is so powerful that it's hard not to see that man, floundering and guttering and drowning in the gas. As I said in the post, if more world leaders read poetry like this, maybe they wouldn't be in such a hurry to send people off with guns.

tanita says :)

[anonymous]

This poem will always and forever remind me of my junior year in high school, when I was introduced to it -- and started memorizing it in English class with the acerbic and dry-witted Dr. Hardcastle. I remember crying that his family learned of his death as they also learned of the news of the Armistice. That was such a horrible irony.

Thanks for the whole of that Latin quote -- sweeter still it is to live. Amen.

Re: tanita says :)

[kellyrfineman]

The horrible irony of his mother receiving that telegram as the bells were ringing wildly with joy is hard to get past.

[jamarattigan]

What a powerful, timeless poem. Love all the backstory and commentary, naturally. You're the best!

[kellyrfineman]

Thanks!

[wordsrmylife]

Reading that poem for the first time made me really pay attention to what titles do for poems, because the title was so clearly meant ironically. What a contrast with your Kenneth Brannagh icon, too.

These poems from the First World War have to be among the saddest ever written. It would be interesting to think about form as a way to contain the overwhelming experience they were going through.

[kellyrfineman]

Henry V is the only remotely bellicose icon I have. Only his big speech is about how it actually is sweet and seemly to die for one's country - "we few; we happy few".

From my somewhat limited reading of the war poets, they mostly wrote in the prevailing forms of their day - cross-rhymed stanzas or couplets, iambic pentameter or tetrameter, etc. The one "new" thing they did was to ditch a lot of end-stopping, so that the rhyme is less obvious when the poem is read aloud.