Notes

The horrible death of the gassed soldier exposes the fallacy behind the oft-repeated, high-sounding Latin epigram: The poem’s protest is against an abuse of language.

The first fourteen of the poem’s twenty-eight lines comprise a sonnet that vividly describes a single terrible moment. The last twelve address the reader directly, explaining the significance or moral of the incident.

“My friend” announces a last turn: a direct accusation against the time-honored, respectable, capitalized “Lie.”

The reader who has some knowledge of classical literature, especially epic poetry and the heroic odes which celebrate great warriors who fall in battle while serving their nation, will immediately see Owen’s strategy. The men he describes in this war are anything but noble. Instead of confronting their foes in single combat, the soldiers in Owen’s poem are retreating from the front lines. They are tired, both physically and psychologically. They are almost deaf to the sounds of the falling gas bombs that could take their lives at any moment.

“Dulce et Decorum Est” graphically depicts a central irony of death on the modern battlefield: No matter how noble the cause may be, the individual soldier can expect nothing but misery in combat and an ignominious end should he be unfortunate enough to become a casualty.

Owen describes the general condition of men involved in the war, sketches briefly the shock of a gas attack, then dwells on the aftermath of this tragic event on someone who lives through it.

That memory prompts the narrator to offer in the final verse paragraph some bitter advice to readers about the nature of warfare and the outcome of blind patriotism. In the last twelve lines of the poem, Owen describes his experience of walking behind the wagon in which the dead man has been placed, seeing the corpse frozen in the twisted agony of its death throes. That sight, he says, would prevent any man from adopting glibly the notion that dying for one’s country is somehow noble.

What most readers notice immediately when reading “Dulce et Decorum Est” is the vividness of Owen’s imagery. The poet is able to make the horrors of warfare come alive before readers’ eyes.

All of these images are intended to contrast with the Latin maxim from which the poem’s title is taken: “Dulce et decorum est,” that is, “it is sweet and proper,” to undergo the agonies of disfigurement and death in the name of patriotism.

The meaning of ‘Dulce et decorum est’ is –“it is sweet and honourable". This makes you think that it will be a poem encouraging war, but as soon as you start to read the poem you realise that it is the complete opposite.