Dulce et Decorum Est

Disambiguation: "Dulce et Decorum Est" is also a song on the Days in Europa album by The Skids; for the Latin slogan, please see Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

Related Topics:
Days in Europa - The Skids - Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

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Dulce et Decorum Est (written in 1917 and published posthumously in 1921) is a poem written by English poet and World War I soldier Wilfred Owen. The work's horrifying imagery has made it one of the most popular condemnations of war ever written.

Related Topics:
1917 - 1921 - Poem - World War I - Wilfred Owen

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The 27-line poem, written loosely in iambic pentameter, is told from the persona of Wilfred Owen. It begins with a depiction of war-weary soldiers marching "through sludge," "blood-shod" and "drunk with fatigue". As mustard gas shells begin to fall, the soldiers scramble to put their gas masks on. In the rush, one man clumsily drops his mask, and the narrator sees the man "yelling out and stumbling and flound'ring like a man in fire or lime" The image of the man "guttering, choking, drowning" permeates his thoughts and dreams, forcing him to live this grotesque nightmare over and over again.

Related Topics:
Iambic pentameter - Mustard gas

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In the final stanza, Owen writes that if readers could see the body—the "eyes writhing", the "face hanging", the "vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues"—they would cease to send young men to war while instilling visions of glory in their heads. No longer would they tell their children the "Old lie," so long ago told by the Roman poet Horace: "Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori" ("It is sweet and proper to die for one's country").

Related Topics:
Roman - Horace - "Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori"

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: My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

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: To children ardent for some desperate glory,

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: The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

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: Pro patria mori.

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Throughout the poem, and particularly strong in this last stanza, there is a running commentary, a letter to Jessie Pope, a civilian propagandist of World War I, who encouraged—"with such high zest"—young men to join the battle, through her poetry.

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Originally, the poem was written as a personal letter to Pope. Owen later decided, however, to address his poem to the wider audience of all supporters of the war. In the last stanza, however, the original intention can still be seen in Owen's bitter, horrific address.

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The poem is often contrasted with the more patriotic tones of poem The Soldier by Rupert Brooke.

Related Topics:
The Soldier - Rupert Brooke

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