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=Dulce et Decorum Est=

Wilfred Owen - 1917
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick boys!--An ecstacy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime.-- Dim, through the misty pains and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sore on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorem est Pro patria mori.

=Way One: First Impressions= When I first read the poem I realized that the speaker was a soldier telling a war story. As the soldiers are returning to base/camp they are suddenly attacked with nerve gas. Everyone gets their gas-masks on except for one man. The soldiers throw him onto a supply wagon and the speaker ends up watching him struggle for life as he walks behind the wagon. The story ends there and the speaker gives the reader advice, stating that if they had been there they wouldn't feel so "patriotic".

=Way Two: Engaging With the Text = Judging from the date the poem was written, the speaker would have been from World War I. This is also supported by the mention of a wagon, which would most likely be used back then. Lines 15 and 16 are seperate from the rest of the poem, possibly to point out the importance of the fact that the image of the man continues to haunt the dreams of the speaker. After these lines the speaker puts the reader in his shoes in order to make the image hit closer to home and have more of an effect. The phrase "Dulce et decorem est pro patria more" means "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country". The speaker calls the phrase a lie and uses the suffering of the man as evidence.

=Way Three: A Point About Form and Its Relationship to Content= The rhyme scheme of this poem is a regular sonnet, that is, it goes abab cdcd efef etc. Lines 15 and 16 are seperated from the rest of of the lines but still maintain the rhyme. These lines are the turning point at which the poem goes from the telling of the story to the nightmare which haunts the speaker to this day. = = =Way Four: Unpacking an Instance of Figurative Language = __Expert Move #1: Identifying the Figurative Language__ "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,/ knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge"(1-2). This simile compares the group to beggars and hags, trudging along and full of disease. __Expert Move #2: Exploring Denotations__ A beggar is someone who is very poor. As the name suggests, they beg people for money because they have none of there own. A hag is somewhat similar to a beggar. The word is usually used as an insult to a woman's appearance and age. It is also related to the word haggard, which means tired and/or hungery in appearance. __Expert Move #3: Unpacking the Figurative Language and Connotative Meanings__ The fact that the speaker compares the group to beggars and hags is to point out how weary and worn out they are. They are down in the gutters and at the end of their ropes. They have nothing and they keep marching on despite their circumstances. __Expert Move #4: Recontextualizing Whithin the Whole Poem__ The image created by these two lines is fits well with the rest of the poem. The situation is not good to begin with and then they are attacked with nerve gas. The speaker is attempting to show how overglorified war is. Some people see war as fighting nearly hand-to-hand and rarely do they imagine themselves dying or dealing with the fatigue of marching. The speaker points out how grueling it is the majority of the time. =Way Five: Analyzing the Setting = The setting is most obviously a warzone. "Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs.../ disappointed shells that dropped behind" are both typical of warzones, especially in the World Wars. Flares were used at night to light up the sky in order to see enemies, and the shells were more than likely howitzer shells. With the poem being written in 1917 the most likely war would be WWI since it was still being faught at the time. Gas was more commonly used in WWI than any other war, which makes lines 9 and 10 stand out as distinguishing phrases. =Way Six: Identifying and Analyzing Point of View= This poem is written in the First Person Point of View because the story is told through the eyes of the speaker. The first sign that this is in the first person POV is in line 2 when it says, "we cursed through sludge". Although "we" is a collective word, it still means that the speaker is part of the story, meaning everything is happening the way he saw it. =Way Seven: Analyzing Complexity, Ambiguity, & Difficulty = The poem is not difficult to understand at all. Almost all of the language is very straightforward. Ambiguity can be first found in line 5 which states "Men marched asleep...". If taken literally, this phrase would mean they were sleep walking, but in actuallity it means that the men were very tired and seemed like they were asleep because they didn't seem to respond to anything going on around them. Ambiguity can later be found in line 14 with the phrase "As under a green sea, I saw him drowning". The green sea is actually a cloud of gas which is suffocating the man, not actually drowning him. =Way Eight: Considering Canonicity= This poem is part of the canon mainly because of when it was written and what it was written about. Owen Wilson wrote the poem during World War One. Most war poems written at the time were patriotic and told of the glories of war, but this one, however, was not written like the rest. It was one of the first poems that told of the horrors of war, especially with the use of gas as a weapon. The canonicity of the poem lies with the connection with WWI along with a shift from patriotism to realism. =Way Nine: Biographical Context= Looking at the life of Wilfred Owen, this poem fits hand in hand with his life at the time. It is quite possible that the events of the poem had happened only the day before, since Owen wrote his poems while he was a soldier in WWI, fighting in France. One of the biggest suprises was that Owen was KIA only one week before the end of the war. Apparantly he decided to go back on active duty because one of his colleagues was injured. Owens considered it as Patriotic to take his friend's place, despite the fact that this poem somewhat mocks patriotism. =Way Ten: Historical and Cultural Context = This poem was written by Wilfred Owen in 1917, while he was fighting in Europe during WWI. During war times countries try to boost morale throught the media, but Owen's poem was not a morale booster. Instead, it showed the harshness of war and satirized the notion that it is good to die for your country. =Way Eleven: Theoretical Application= Looking at the poem using New Criticism, I am drawn to the first paragraph which repeats its emphasis on the marching of the soldiers. They are all tired and seamingly dead to their surroundings, and this portrays a generally low morale and a gloomy mood. This leads to the idea that despite the common glorifications of soldiers marching valantly into battle it is actually the complete opposite. The second part of the poem that draws attention is the second paragraph which repeatedly compares the man suffocating from the gas to someone drowning in the sea. This could be symbolic of the soldiers being in over their heads in this war, especially with weapons as potent as nerve gas. = = =Way Twelve: Another Theoretical Application= A psychoanalysis of the Owen provides some depth about why he writes as if he has a dislike of war. War is usually considered to be quite a masculine thing, but it is improbable that Owen would be considered a masculine person since he had a very close relationship with his mother and was homosexual. This doesn't actually mean that he disliked war, but his view was unique, and that may be why he didn't believe in the glory of dying for his country. =Way Thirteen: Unifying Interpretation= "Dulce et Decorum Est" was written in 1917 by Wilfred Owen while he was hospitalized for shellshock. So was the case with most of his poetry. This poem is a First-person description of a gas attack while soldiers return from a long day. Instead of the typical pro-war literature that was most common in times of war, Owen's poem was the direct opposite. It showed the harsh reality of war and how dying for ones country can be a horrifying ordeal. This can be seen through some of the repetitive themes of the poem like the comparison between the gas and the sea. Something can be said about how Owen's personal life very well may have effected his outlook of war.

=Works Cited= Masson, David I. "Wilfred Owen's Free Phonetic Patterns: Their Style and Function." JSTOR. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 30 April 2009. 

"Owen, Wilfred." Hutchinson Encyclopedia of Biography. Helicon Limited, 2000.

"Poets of the Great War." 30 April 2009. [].