Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Dulce et Decorm est
- Themes
- Propagagnda
- "The old lie"
- dismissive of the techniques the gov. use
- it tricks boys into wasting their lives
- War
- it's WW1 - battlefield
- people are lost in two ways
- Physically
- Mentally
- Patriotism
- anti-patriotic
- dismissive of the gov.
- why aren't they out fighting too?
- First Stanza
- Takes the reader into the ranks
- unusual/catching opening
- Broken iambic pentameter til line 5
- After line 5, uses commas and semi colons etc.
- show the broken state of the men
- Simile - like old beggars
- Ironic as they're young men
- Second Stanza
- Taken into first hand tragedy
- the loss of his fellow comrade (common in war)
- "ecstasy of fumbling"
- sense of frenzy and urgency
- detailed suffering/panic
- to make the reader feel his own pain/frustration
- becomes more personal
- features his own experiences
- Stanza 4
- confronts the reader
- that if they saw what he saw, they'd wish the war dead
- uses vivid/shocking description
- "His hanging face like a devils sick of sin"
- "obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud"
- Stanza 3
- only 2 lines long
- brings home personal loss/effect to the reader
- i, my, me
- uses the word "guttering"
- describes the tears streaming down the mans face
- a sign of fear/sadness towards death
- a symptom from being infected by the gas
- Language
- opening lines contain of: bent, beggars, sacks, hags, cursed, haunting, trudge
- these are all terms used to describe poverty/deprivation
- not a glorious soldier -like the gov. described
- alliteration - lines 5, 11 & 19
- "Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots"
- use of similies
- "like a devils face, sick of sin"
- Imagery
- men appear old - but that's just an illusion
- stanza 4 is full of imagery
- "and watch the white eyes writhing in his face"
- Background
- Poet - Wilfred Owen
- written during WW1
- published 1920
- it is sweet and honorable to die for the fatherland