Dulce et Decorum est- Owen

• Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" seeks to depict the realities of war and create an unvarnished tale of what war is
• The poem was written in 1917 by Wilfred Owen while he was in Craig Lockhart Hospital under the guidance of Siegfried Sassoon
• It tells the story of a gas attack that Wilfred Owen experienced himself in France in 1917, resulting in shell shock and hospitalization
• The title "Dulce et Decorum Est" is a reference to a line from Horace in Latin, meaning "it is sweet and proper to die for one's home country"
• The first stanza describes soldiers as bent double like old beggars under sacks, using similes and alliteration to paint a vivid picture of their poor condition
• The soldiers are described as cursing through sludge, marching asleep, and trudging towards a distant rest, which symbolizes both physical and metaphorical exhaustion and death
• The soldiers are depicted as blood-shod, with a neologism creating a visceral image of their shoes made of blood
• The soldiers are described as lame and blind, emphasizing the idea that no one can escape the horrors of war
• The soldiers are portrayed as drunk with fatigue and deaf to the hoots of gas shells dropping softly behind them, creating a sense of chaos and danger
• The poem shifts from a recount of the march to a personal account of witnessing a soldier dying from a gas attack, with vivid imagery of drowning in chlorine gas
• The persona of the poem directly addresses the reader, urging them to see the horrors of war through the persona's eyes and experience the gruesome reality of conflict