Dulce et Decorum Est is a poem written by Wilfred Owen in 1917 and then published in 1921 after the author’s death (Muttaleb and Hamadneh 3). Its title is the reference to Horace’s words, who once said, “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.” In his poem, Owen tries to describe the real warfare on the battlefields of the First World War (WWI). To achieve this, the poet uses formal language to attract his reader’s attention to the seriousness of the war. He mentions important topics such as the use of chemical weapons and losing brothers in arms. Moreover, in this poem, the writer defies the typical image of hegemonic masculinity, which could be found in the war propaganda during The First World War. The first several lines where Owen describes soldiers who “marched asleep” and “lost their boots,” and the last paragraph where he talks about his squadmate dying from gas poisoning severely contradict with recruitment posters of the time (Owen, line 3). Throughout the whole poem, Owen challenges the hegemonic perception of men who fought in WWI, replacing it with his own experience in the reader’s head.
Throughout the whole poem, Owen tries to describe the hardships soldiers had to endure in WWI. The poet tries to challenge war propaganda by depicting the real situation on the battlefield. He shows the consequences of gas poisoning through the lens of one of his comrades dying on an ambulance wagon (Fisher 1). Soldiers, in the eyes of Owen, are much more different from those presented on the wartime propaganda posters. Those often contained hegemonic masculinity as they showed manly looking soldiers, promising glory and hero status to anyone who is drafted. Owen, on the other hand, pictures WWI infantry as ordinary men struggling for their lives “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge” (Owen, line 2). The entire work is a direct comparison of reality with the sweet lies of politicians. The author tries to show the difference between wartime agitation, which can be found on the posters, and the real WWI experience. Therefore, by simply comparing Owen’s gassed soldier and those glorified men from recruitment posters, one can conclude that the poem was written to challenge the way the propaganda depicted warfare.
Dulce et Decorum Est is one of the most recognized antimilitarist poems in the world. Owen treats war as the general theme in his poem. This can be seen through the use of a complicated and formal tone applied by the author. In addition, the author included many metaphors and vivid graphic imagery (Aiken 100). For instance, in the fourth stanza, Owen changes from the first person to the second person, which is done to make the reader relive the poet’s experience (Aiken 100). Owen wants his potential readers to walk in his shoes and, thus, see what he saw whilst being a WWI soldier. He deliberately stresses on his dying comrades with “hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” and the gas raid, which he describes as “the misty panes and thick green light” (Owen, lines 13-20). These vivid expressions open up the author’s original intentions to depict the actual situation on the battlefield where people died without dignity and often in horrible pain. Dulce et Decorum Est helps its readers to build a parallel with hegemonic masculinity in war propaganda at the time and the actual situation on the battlefield.
Wilfred Owen is best known as one of the most popular poets during WWI. His works are widely recognized and considered to be antimilitarist. For instance, Dulce et Decorum Est was written when Owen was a soldier himself fighting in WWI. The author went through this dramatic experience and, thus, wants the entire world to know about how meaningless and destructive warfare is. From the very first stanza, Owen tries to tackle the myth that war is glorious; before this poem, the myth had been used as a propaganda tool since antiquity. The poem condemns the idea that warfare is something necessary for society to exist and prosper. It does the opposite as it shows how destructive the war can be. Even the last two lines, “Dulce et Decorum Est” were used by Owen to reinvent the meaning of Horace’s words making their initial interpretation a lie (Owen, line 27). Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that this poem is one of the best antimilitarist works available to the general public today. Owen offers an alternative view on warfare to his readers by challenging the hegemonic perception of soldiers.
Owen’s struggle against hegemonic masculinity can be seen in his background. Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 and died in 1918 (Muttaleb and Hamadneh 3). His lifespan was incredibly short and yet full of poetry and warfare. Unfortunately, there are no essays or reviews available from Wilfred Owen and, thus, one should assume that he only had political ambitions as a writer (Motion 259). War is not just the main theme in Dulce et Decorum Est; it is the main topic of many other poems written by Owen during his time on the battlefield. The First World War and its tragedies served as a source of inspiration to the author. For example, in his other work Spring Offensive he also stresses his attention on how meaningless warfare is (Muttaleb and Hamadneh 6). Therefore, the antimilitarist agenda and the intention of describing WWI as it really was can be traced through multiple works of Owen. This shows the author’s attempt to depict soldiers as real men, which differ from those drawn on the propaganda posters.
In conclusion, Wilfred Owen was, undoubtedly, one of the most notable poets of The First World War. The majority of his works aim to show how meaningless and cruel the war was. Everything in Dulce et Decorum Est points at Owen’s attempt to deliver the real battlefield experience to his readers. The other defies the long-standing perception of war and offers an alternative to his readers. He does not show soldiers as perfect killing machines who are ready to accept glory in death. In fact, Owen does the exact opposite as he uses vivid language to graphically depict tired men who “marched asleep (Owen, line 5).” From the very first line, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,” he carefully builds the parallel between real soldiers and those depicted on the wartime recruitment posters (Owen, line 1). The poet, then, goes on to describe the true meaning of Horace’s words as he shows what dying for one’s country really means. Ultimately, the entire poem is a challenge to hegemonic masculinity with its final goal to change the perception of those in the minds of readers.
Works Cited
Aiken, S. C. Hardy and Owen on World War I: Explications and a Comparative Analysis of” The Man He Killed” and” Dulce et Decorum Est.” THE OSWALD Review Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English: Volume 2002: 93.
Fisher, David Lawrence. Dulce et Decorum Est: Moral Injury in the Poetry of Combat Veterans. Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2019.
Motion, Andrew. Wilfred Owen: The Making of a Poet. Literary Imagination 22.3 (2020): 258-273.
Muttaleb, Fuad Abdul, and Tarik Hamadneh. “War Poetry: Wilfred Owen as a Soldier and Poet.”