Saturday, July 30, 2011

Classic Poetry-Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen


Wilfred Owen


Dulce Et Decorum Est

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 disappointed shells 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 floundering 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 was born in 1893 to a middle-class family in Oswestry in the North of England. Two years later, Owen's grandfather, the financial mainstay of the family, died almost bankrupt. Owen's parents had to move into rented accommodation in the more urban area of Birkenhead. His mother, in particular, resented the family's loss of financial security and its outward signs of gentility.

Owen began to read and write poetry as a child, and, following his mother's interest in religion, started to read the Bible on a daily basis. Owen's family could not afford to send him to public school. Nor, when he failed to win an academic scholarship to the University of London (not as socially or intellectually exclusive as Oxford or Cambridge) in 1911, could they afford to pay for a college education.

Owen thus had to find an occupation suitable to a young man of his class. In 1911, he moved south to the village of Dunsden, near Reading, where he worked as a lay reader (an assistant to a clergyman) until 1913. He attended classes part-time at the University of Reading but, despite encouragement from the head of the English department, he again failed to win the scholarship that would have financed full-time study.

After falling ill in 1913, he decided to work as a private teacher, a profession which required little formal training and which would not compromise his, or his family's, social status. He traveled to France, where he worked until 1915. Just after the outbreak of the war, he wrote to his mother, "While is is true that the guns will effect a little useful weeding, I am furious with chagrin to think that the Minds which were to have excelled the civilization of ten thousand years are being annihilated - and bodies, the product of aeons of Natural Selection, melted down to pay for political statues." (Quoted in Jon Stallworthy, Wilfred Owen: The War Poems (London 1994), p. xxiv)


Learn more about Wilfred Owenhere.

by A.M. Trumble


7 comments:

  1. I'd not read this poet before, so am really glad to see him highlighted. His words paint the most vivid of pictures. I will seek out more.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love Wilfred Owen's poetry. It is unsparing and unforgettable. How tragic that he was one of the last casualties of the war. Who knows what else he might have written had he lived. It makes one wonder how many other great gifts were left to rot on in the trenches of the Great War.

    PS--does anyone know what the Latin at the end means? I assume it is something about the glory of battle, but i don't know.

    ReplyDelete
  3. One of my favourite poems.

    Last line roughly translated: It is a glorious thing to die for one's country.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is great poem. Thank you for sharing it with us.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love this poem. I studied Owen and some other war poets in Uni. I love how he links words you wouldn't expect: "blood-shod", "an ecstasy of fumbling" Thanks for highlighting it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I felt this. He is an extraordinary poet as are all poets of war. He is also an accomplished poet who will bring tears to anyones eyes. I have a collection of war poetry that is precious to me. I have also written some. I have been lucky enough to have volunteered with veterans assisting them with writing some of their own poems.

    ReplyDelete

This community is not meant to be used in a negative manner. We ask that you be respectful of all the people on this site as each individual writer is entitled to their own opinion, style, and path to creativity.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Blog Archive

Followers