SEB WRITTEN COMMENTARY
Written Commentary: Dulce Et Decorum Est
Word Count: 1001
Written by Wilfred Owen the poem Dulce Et Decorum Est is one of the many poems that described the war as it was. Owen uses a Latin quotation from Horace, initially used in recruiting propaganda, in contradiction to its own meaning. Through the use of visual and auditory imagery Owen creates a scenario that he himself might of experienced. The constant emphasis on the poor condition of the soldiers is just one of the many factors that Owen uses to express the soldier´s situation. Owen use´s the gruesome death of a soldier to further emphasis the disheartening situation on the war front. The poem follows a very basic rhyme scheme that is simply there to maintain the atmosphere of the poem as there is no big change in the scheme itself.
The first stanza immediately engulfs the reader with this sense of distress and suffering. The kind of torment that one only experiences after the very worst has happened. The first two lines describe the mental anguish and utter discomfort that the soldiers experience. Owen relates to them as old and wasted men, he describes them as “Old Beggars” and “coughing like hags”. Owen sets the scene as he describes the soldiers leaving the battleground. He underlines this effort by saying that the soldier´s backs are facing the flares that light up the battlefield, suggesting that they are leaving the conflict zone. Owen further suggests this by saying that they are trudging towards their Distant Rest. This was commonly associated with the section of the war front in which soldiers could rest. The next four lines described the exhaustion and indifference that the soldiers were experiencing. The use of a metaphor: “Men marched asleep” exaggerates the desperate and worsening state of the soldiers. Later in the stanza Owen further exaggerates the somewhat gloomy and depressing situation: “All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots”. In this quotation the
Word Count: 1001
Written by Wilfred Owen the poem Dulce Et Decorum Est is one of the many poems that described the war as it was. Owen uses a Latin quotation from Horace, initially used in recruiting propaganda, in contradiction to its own meaning. Through the use of visual and auditory imagery Owen creates a scenario that he himself might of experienced. The constant emphasis on the poor condition of the soldiers is just one of the many factors that Owen uses to express the soldier´s situation. Owen use´s the gruesome death of a soldier to further emphasis the disheartening situation on the war front. The poem follows a very basic rhyme scheme that is simply there to maintain the atmosphere of the poem as there is no big change in the scheme itself.
The first stanza immediately engulfs the reader with this sense of distress and suffering. The kind of torment that one only experiences after the very worst has happened. The first two lines describe the mental anguish and utter discomfort that the soldiers experience. Owen relates to them as old and wasted men, he describes them as “Old Beggars” and “coughing like hags”. Owen sets the scene as he describes the soldiers leaving the battleground. He underlines this effort by saying that the soldier´s backs are facing the flares that light up the battlefield, suggesting that they are leaving the conflict zone. Owen further suggests this by saying that they are trudging towards their Distant Rest. This was commonly associated with the section of the war front in which soldiers could rest. The next four lines described the exhaustion and indifference that the soldiers were experiencing. The use of a metaphor: “Men marched asleep” exaggerates the desperate and worsening state of the soldiers. Later in the stanza Owen further exaggerates the somewhat gloomy and depressing situation: “All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots”. In this quotation the