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This is a powerful anti-war poem. It is set in the trenches of northern France during the Great War --
a.k.a. World War I -- and describes with graphic detail the horror of the war, especially the gas that
dissolved the lungs and caused the soldiers to die an excruciating and humiliating death by drowning in
their own blood.
Dying for one's country, the poet concludes, is in no way a glorious and honourable thing.
ABOUT THE POET
Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 in Shropshire to a family of committed Christians. He was educated at
the Birkenhead Institute and Shrewsbury Technical College.
Owen wanted to become a teacher but his father could not afford the university fees. Instead, therefore,
he journeyed to France in 1913 where he worked as a tutor. He also wrote occasional poetry, none of
which is particularly known.
When the Great War broke out in 1914, Owen maintained a vague interest in events through cuttings from
newspapers sent by his mother with whom he had a close relationship.
Eventually, however, the pressure of propaganda overcame him and, in October 1915, he returned to
England and enlisted. He was then 22 years of age.
The poet spent a year in training. Letters to his mother reveal that he enjoyed the prestige of wearing the
military uniform.
His training finished at the end of 1916 whereupon he joined the 2nd Manchesters in France where he
took command of No. 3 Platoon.
His enthusiasm initially abounded but soon he was sent to the frontline and witnessed firsthand the gross
tragedy of warfare: living in trenches which were forever knee-deep in mud and water, the rotting corpses
of soldiers, the dreadful war injuries.
"I have suffered seventh hell," he wrote to his mother. "I have not been at the front. I have been
in front of it . . . to where the ground was not mud, not sloppy mud, but an octopus of sucking clay, three,
four, and five feet deep, relieved only by craters full of water . . . "
Initially Owen's character and temperament did not suit his being a soldier. He was a scholar and a poet,
introverted and sensitive. Moreover, he was a committed Christian whose ideals were opposed to warfare
in any form. It was during this period that he appears to have penned most of his anti-war poems.
The war forced him to face a conflict between his Christian beliefs and his role as a soldier, a scholar
wrote. "I am more and more a Christian," he wrote to his mother in May 1917. "Suffer
dishonour and disgrace, but never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed: but do not kill."
Late in 1917 Owen was sent home, suffering from shell-shock. While recuperating in the military hospital,
he fell under the influence of the anti-war poet, Siegfried Sassoon, who aided him in polishing his war
poetry.
Yet Owen appears to have had a distinct dislike for pacifists and did not want to be identified with them.
Indeed, he felt that his poetry could have a far deeper impact if emanating from a soldier in the trenches.
For that reason, therefore, he re-enlisted for the army and, in October 1918, he rejoined his company in
France. This time, however, he appears to have identified himself with the soldiers and took tremendous
risks in battle.
During one encounter, he captured a German machine gun and used it to decimate a host of enemy
soldiers, for which deed he won the Victoria Cross. Although he denied it in letters to his mother, he
appears now to have become a killing machine.
In early November, just one week before the armistice which ended the war, he supervised the
construction of a bridge to cross the Sambre and Oise Canal. Wave after wave of his own men were
massacred in the attempt. Wilfred Owen too fell in a flurry of machine gun bullets.
He was buried in a small British cemetery in northern France. He was then just 25 years of age.
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
The poem is called "Dulce et decorum est".
- Explain why this title is ironic. (2)
[Need help?]
The title of the poem refers to a Latin saying which means "it is sweet and right to die for your
country". The poet points out, however, that there is nothing whatever honourable about dying for your
country.
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"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge."
- Identify the simile in the first line. What is being compared? (3)
[Need help?]
The simile is: "like old beggars" where soldiers are being compared to beggars.
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- Why does the poet use this comparison? (2)
[Need help?]
The soldiers look ragged and worn out from incessant conflict so that they look like beggars, people who
have nothing much left with life.
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- What impression does the reader get of the soldiers in these two lines? Quote an example to support
your answer. (2)
[Need help?]
The soldiers are exhausted and sick -- sick and tired of the war. They are knock-kneed, coughing and
cursing.
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[Need help?]
Sludge is thick mud that is difficult to walk in, which sucks the soldiers in.
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"Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep."
- How do the men feel in the first line? Quote TWO CONSECUTIVE words to support your
answer. (3)
[Need help?]
They are exhausted but rest is still so far away. The poet speaks of "distant rest".
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"Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind."
- Identify the figure of speech found in "blood-shod". Why has the poet used this
comparison? (4)
[Need help?]
"Blood-shod" is a metaphor. The soldiers' feet are so covered in blood it
looks as though they are wearing bloody shoes.
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- The poet says "all blind". Is this meant literally or figuratively? Explain your
answer. (3)
[Need help?]
"All blind" is used figuratively. The soldiers are so tired they are marching along like zombies.
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"Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind."
- Identify the figure of speech in "Drunk with fatigue". Why has the poet made this
comparison? (3)
[Need help?]
"Drunk with fatigue" is a metaphor. The soldiers are so tired they are
staggering like a drunk person would, unsteady on their feet.
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- Identify the figure of speech in "the hoots". What causes "the hoots"? (3)
[Need help?]
"The hoots" is onomatopoeia. The bombs are dropping, making a sound like "hoots" as the
phosgene gas escapes.
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