Some more commentary on the poem by Wilfred Owen

                    "Dulce et decorum est" di Wilfred Owen

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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas!Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. . .

Dim, through the misty panes 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 sores 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 Decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen in Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori, gives us a terrible view of war, through the death of a soldier killed by the gas of chemical weapon in world war 1.

With this poem he denounces trench life and the death by gas and describes it with such realistic and cruel words that we can’t remain indifferent to this. The agony of this soldier, and the description of the other ones marching under the weight of their weapon, give us an imagine that is far away from that of heroes fighting for the honor of their country, in fact they are represented like “old beggars … coughing like hags”.

The poet wants to give us the real image of the war, he gives a painfull description of the situation just to impress the reader, because he thinks that only by seeing war in all its crude horror he can fully understand the poet’s accusation at the end of the poem. 

The poem ends with a latin phrase “Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori” which reminds us of a centuries-old tradition of patriotism, but according to Owen it is an “old lie” because love for ones country cannot justify the horror of war and the waste of so many lives. This latin sentence sounds noble and idealizing, while war is considered as something horrible to be avoided.

Giannino Francesca , 4 B