Dulce et Decorum est is a poem written by poet Wilfred Owen in 1917, during World War I, and published posthumously in 1920. Owen's poem is known for its horrific imagery and condemnation of war. It was drafted at Craiglockhart in the first half of October 1917 and later revised, probably at Scarborough but possibly Ripon, between January and March 1918. The earliest surviving manuscript is dated 8 October 1917 and addressed to his mother, Susan Owen, with the message "Here is a gas poem done yesterday, (which is not private, but not final)".
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Formally, the poem can be understood as the combination of two sonnets, though the spacing of the stanzas is irregular. The text presents a vignette from the front lines of World War I; specifically, of British soldiers attacked with chemical weapons. In the rush to equip themselves against the gas, one soldier is unable to get his mask on in time. The speaker of the poem describes the gruesome effects of the gas on the man and concludes, despite Horace's pronouncement, that were one to see firsthand the reality of war, she might not repeat mendacious platitudes about the nature of war.
Through the poem, and particularly strong in the last stanza, there is a running commentary, a letter to Jessie Pope, a civilian propagandist of World War I, who encouraged—"with such high zest"—young men to join the battle, through her poetry, e.g. "Who's for the game?"
The first draft of the poem, indeed, was dedicated to Pope.[1] A later revision amended this to "a certain Poetess"[1], though this did not make it into the final publication, either, as Owen apparently decided to address his poem to the larger audience of war supporters in general. In the last stanza, however, the original intention can still be seen in Owen's bitter, horrific address.
The words dulce et decorum est were quoted in Robert Penn Warren's "A Place to Come To" in connection with the main character's interaction with a German officer prisoner of war in World War II.
The title and the Latin exhortation of the final two lines are drawn from the phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" written by the Roman poet Horace in (Ode III.2.13):[2]
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:
mors et fugacem persequitur virum
nec parcit inbellis iuventae
poplitibus timidove tergo.
"How sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country:
Death pursues the man who flees,
spares not the hamstrings or cowardly backs
Of battle-shy youths."
These words were well known and often quoted by supporters of the war near its inception and were, therefore, of particular relevance to soldiers of the era.
In 1913, the first line, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, was inscribed on the wall of the chapel of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[3] In the final stanza of his poem, Owen refers to this as "The old Lie".[4]
In 'Dulce et Decorum est' Wilfred Owen employs a Sonnet structure, only he adapts the structure. Owen has the Octave (proportional, with 16 then 12 lines)then the sestet however the first part still tells the story (broken into 3 stanza's) and the second still draws a lesson from the first. The rhyme scheme fits a sonnet as well until you get to the final couplet which is broken up by the change of stanza: (/indicates a new set, -indicates a nex stanza) ABAB/ABABA-CDCD/X1X2-X1X2-ABAB/ABAB/CDCD. This breaking up of the final couplet in the octave (which is at the start but consisting of 16 not 8 lines) is making the point that war divides. The mucking around of the Sonnet structure is to show the point that there cannot be love in war, as a sonnet is traditionally a love poem. Thus Owen shows to his audience that war is the main tool for human destruction.
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