What is the irony in "Dulce et Decorum Est"?

The title of this poem about World War I comes from a longer Latin phrase: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. In English, it means "it is sweet and proper to die for one's country," much the same line touted by those who tried to get young men like the speaker to go off to war by portraying it as a glorious, heroic struggle.

But the scenes of war the speaker describes seem to contradict this. In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker describes the soldiers fighting in the Great War as "bent double" and compares them to "old beggars under sacks." The implication here is that the soldiers are weighed down and appear to be aged by the hardships of war. The speaker also says that the soldiers are "coughing like hags," which implies that the war has made them sick.

In the second stanza of the poem, the speaker describes a gas attack. He describes one soldier "flound'ring like a man in fire" after inhaling the poisonous gas. This simile suggests that war is excruciatingly painful, and anything but "sweet and proper" as the title suggests. This impression, and thus the tragic irony of the title, is compounded when the speaker describes the same soldier "guttering, choking, drowning."

In the third and final stanza the speaker describes the dead body of the soldier who inhaled the poisonous gas. The descriptions are deliberately visceral and graphic. The dead soldier's "hanging face" is "like a devil's sick of sin," the implication here being that even the devil would be "sick," or tired of the sins of the war. The speaker also describes the "blood / Come gargling" from the soldier's lungs, and "the white eyes writhing" in the soldier's face.

At the end of the poem the speaker addresses the reader directly, referring back to the phrase from the title:

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.

The propaganda leading up to World War I suggested that the war represented a chance for young men to achieve glory and honor, and it also suggested, as indicated by the title of the poem, that it was "sweet and proper" to give one's life for one's country. The speaker at the end of the poem says that these claims made by the propaganda are lies. He points out that the reality of war is neither "sweet" nor "proper," but rather hideous and brutal. This is the tragic irony of the poem: that the reality or war is so far removed from the ideas put forward by propaganda.

What is the mood of the poem "Dulce et Decorum Est"?

In the first stanza of the poem, the mood is gloomy and depressing. This is because Owen creates an image of soldiers who are battle-worn, fatigued and weary. They cough like "hags" and are missing vital pieces of equipment, like boots. For Owen, this is the reality of war: it is not glamorous or noble; it is desperate and difficult and transforms men into shadows of their former selves.

When Owen describes the gas attack, the mood of the poem changes. It becomes violent, as Owen describes in detail the "guttering" and "choking" of such an attack. Moreover, he uses imagery to reinforce this violence: he talks about the "gargling" caused by the gas attacking the lungs and "incurable" sores on the tongue.

In the final lines of the poem, the mood is bitter and ironic as Owen reveals his message: that war is not glorious at all and that fighting for one's country is not sweet, as the title suggests. This idea is, in fact, the greatest lie told to men and boys. 

What is the mood of the poem "Dulce et Decorum Est"?

The mood is unremittingly bitter, bleak, harsh and unpleasant, showing in viscerally thick verbal detail the absolute horror endured by the men who fought in World War 1.

Within that, though, I think there a few separate moods in the various stanzas of the poem. The first stanza is heavy, tired, almost asleep with weariness, and the rhythms drop in heavily, slowly, painfully...

                           All went lame; all blind; 
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots 
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Then, as the gas explodes, the poem picks up pace and the mood becomes one of terrified, gasping panic:

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! –  An ecstasy of fumbling,  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time...

There's then another painfully bloody and gruesome description of a man dying from gas, and the mood is almost wincingly painful, emphasising little details. And the final stanza then changes into a new, more angry, more ironic mode: the mood is aggressive, hostile to the reader, and it hammers home its final ironic point:

You would not tell...
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 
Pro patria mori.

An exceptional, wonderful poem, I think. Hope it helps!

What is the mood of the poem "Dulce et Decorum Est"?

"Dulce et Decorum Est" conveys the horrors of war by describing the death by asphyxiation of a young soldier due to a gas attack. In a gripping, horrifying description of the man's death, Owen describes the man "guttering, choking, drowning," a scene that haunts his dreams even after the incident. But this evocation of the death agonies of young men is only part of Owen's message. What really makes Owen's account powerful is his juxtaposition of this scene, as well as the general miseries of trench warfare, which sees young men doubled over "like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags," trudging through muck and mire, with the patriotic pronouncements of politicians back home. These are the men who, according to Owen, perpetuate "the old lie" that gives the poem its title:

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

This phrase, attributed to Horace, would have been familiar to the classically educated middle classes of Britain, and the realities of war as described so powerfully by Owen demonstrate the absurdity of the notion. For Owen, who had experienced the war firsthand, claims about patriotism and glory rang hollow. War was fundamentally about human misery and death, and if those who encouraged young men to go the front experienced these horrors, they would see things differently.

What is the thesis statement of "Dulce et Decorum Est"?

The thesis of this anti-war poem is that war is degrading and horrible. It is anything but "sweet and fitting" (which is what "dulce and decorum" means). People in English society might have been taught that it was sweet, fitting, and glorious to do one's patriotic duty by fighting to protect one's homeland, but Owen tries to illustrate that this sentiment is a lie.

Owen supports his thesis that war is terrible by using vivid imagery to illustrate how horrible and lacking in heroism modern warfare really is. Imagery is description that uses the five senses: touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight.

Owen's war setting is World War I, the war which was going on in his lifetime. World War I was a terrible bloodbath in which thousands and thousands of young lives were sacrificed in attempts to capture a few feet of territory. Specifically, Owen describes a soldier who suffers a poison gas attack.

Rather than opening with glorious, manly, upright fighters proudly engaging in battle, Owen's speaker, a solider himself, begins with imagery that compares soldiers to people often seen as weak and degraded in society: beggars and old women. He describes the soldiers as

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags

This anything but a heroic image.

The harsh, degrading imagery continues. These soldiers are exhausted and injured:

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind

A gas attacks adds to the misery. The men dive and fumble to put on their gas masks, but one doesn't get his on in time. There is nothing brave, manly, or heroic about his fate, which the speaker describes without trying to hide the horror:

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

The imagery of writhing eyes and frothing blood strips warfare of any heroism.

The speaker ends by directly addressing a "friend," who, we imagine, has been telling young people about the glories of war. He tells the friend that if he could see a real battlefield, he would no longer repeat the "lie" that war is noble and patriotic.

It is difficult, once one has read this poem, to understand modern warfare as anything but a horror to be avoided.

Why is the title "Dulce Et Decorum Est" ironic?

DULCE ET DECORUM EST are the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were often used as an oath and were frequently quoted by soldiers at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right."

The full Latin saying can be found at the end of the poem: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" These words are interpreted as "It is sweet and right to die for your country." In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country.

The irony lies in the speaker's declaration that this oath is "The old Lie." There is nothing sweet or good about war. There is nothing honorable in dying. The entire poem is about the ugliness of war and death in war. The last stanza says it all. The speaker reveals the truth about this sort of death to the unknowing eyes who haven't witnessed it and do not understand:

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.

Below is a link to an in depth discussion of the poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est."

Explain the title and last lines of "Dulce et Decorum est".

The title and last line translated from the Latin mean It is sweet and honorable, to die for one's country. The use of Latin is appropriate for this classical, epic view of war.

It is a view Owen completely rejects and he uses his own experience of modern warfare to do so. Straightaway, there is an ironic distance between the opening of the poem and its title.They don't march as soldiers should, they 'trudge .....through sludge'. The anti - heroic view of war is very apparent, the rhyme on this occasion suggesting its dull,repetitive nature.

When Owen describes the death throes of the victim of the gas attack, the contrast between reality and the high minded sentiment of the title becomes not just ironic, but 'Obscene' , 'bitter', words Owen uses to describe the victim's now infected lungs. It is also description which coveys the horror, not the glory of war.

The poem's ending reveals that the whole thing is actually what Owen is saying to someone who chose to repeat the lie that is the  dulce et decorum est sentiment. The fact that the poem is part of a conversation, allows Owen to fully vent his anger at the sentiment, the poem's title. It is the most effective anti-war poem I have ever read.

Explain the title and last lines of "Dulce et Decorum est".

"Dulce et Decorum Est" was written by Wilfred Owen, whose poetry was shaped by his own experiences in the trenches of World War I (and who would himself die shortly before the armistice). This poem is ultimately about the horrors of war, and it is graphic in its descriptions of the experience in the trenches—but at the end of the poem, the tenor of the poem actually changes somewhat so that it becomes an indictment on the glorification of war. This is ultimately the message that emerges in the poem's final stanza (and is also alluded to in the title of the poem). The speaker addresses some external personality, relating the things he has seen and experienced. Note the conditional nature of his phrasing in his use of the word "if". Essentially: if you have experienced what I have experienced . . .

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

Owen is referring here to a quote by Horace, and in referencing this quote within this particular context, he voices a scathing rejoinder to anyone who would claim that death on the battlefield is something ennobling.

Explain the title and last lines of "Dulce et Decorum est".

The title comes from the last two lines, and the lines are Latin and translate roughly to "It is sweet and right to die for your country."

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)  
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory, 
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 
Pro patria mori.(15)

Basically, this is an anti-war poem.  These last lines refer to the fact that people often describe war as a wonderful thing, and as the Latin suggests, glorify dying for one’s country.  The poem does not agree with this, calling it a “Lie” with a capital L.  Children deserve to know the truth: that war is terrible.  Instead of glorifying war, this poem describes it in its horrid detail and encourages people to appreciate and understand the difficulty that war causes for a person and a family.  Too many children run off to join up in the war, when they see it as romanitc and don't really know what they are in for.

How is death portrayed in the poem "Dulce et Decorum Est"?

“Dulce et Decorum est” is an angry statement against those who see glory in the death of soldiers in battle. The title of Wilfred Owen’s poem is referring to the common saying during World War I, “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country,” which Owen saw as political propaganda for the recruitment of young soldiers.

Death is pervasive in the poem, following the soldiers as they march back to camp from the battleground, “blood shod,” with the red blood of comrades, enemies, and themselves. Ironically, one man is so exhausted from the battle, he is unable to react in time to a gas shell shot at them from the distant battle. The description of his slow, torturous death from inhaling the chlorine gas is harsh and haunting. Owen sees him “Floundering like a man in fire...guttering, choking, drowning.” He tells the world, “If you could hear...the blood / Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,” you would not tell children, who are desperate to believe that adults are making the right decisions, “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori" (It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country).

What is the form of "Dulce et Decorum Est"?

Owen's poem has three basic parts: two eight-line stanzas and a concluding stanza of twelve lines. The structure thus resembles that of an ode, the classical poetic form in which the stanzas are labeled strophe, antistrophe, and epode. In context, the use of the ode format conveys a grim irony.

The first stanza basically sets the scene of war, as a contingent of World War I soldiers staggers along, beleaguered and traumatized by the fighting they have evidently already seen, or at least by the general conditions of the front. The second stanza describes a gas attack and its devastating effects. The third stanza then delivers the poem's stark theme, the senselessness of war and the wrongness of the message encapsulated in the title, the famous Latin quote from an ode of Horace which means, "Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country."

That line is so well known to literary people that Owen sees no need to translate it. The manner in which he quotes Horace is meant to strike the reader sharply, like a whip, though Owen has built up to it gradually and inevitably. We have already been shown the horror of war in explicit detail in stanza 2. Still, the effect of the quote at the end is so strong because Horace's maxim is (or was) something almost universally believed, a kind of conventional wisdom few people had questioned through the ages except those who were explicit pacifists. In World War I, young men were encouraged to enlist for the glory of their country, but found, by the millions, that the so-called glory was an illusion, and a horrific one. Owen's poem is a microcosm of the terror of war that occurs on a vast scale.

What is the form of "Dulce et Decorum Est"?

When we talk about the form of a poem we normally are referring to such aspects as how the poem is structured and positioned on the page. If you have a look at the poem carefully, it is actually written in iambic pentameters with some variation. It is divided into four irregular stanzas of, respectively, 8 lines, 6 lines, 2 lines and 12 lines. The biggest variation in the meter is the last line, which only has 6 syllables, therefore emphasising the ending and the harsh, bitter criticism in the Latin quote that gives this excellent poem its title.

When we consider rhyme scheme, it is actually far more consistent. Consider how the rhyme scheme goes abab cdcd efef ghgh ijij klkl mnmn. The regularity of this rhyme scheme serves to emphasise the disturbing mood of the poem as we are forced to see the disparity between the harsh reality of war and romantic idealism, which is often portrayed through just such a regular rhyme scheme.

What is the central message of "Dulce et Decorum Est"?

The central message of Owen's poem features a stinging rebuke of war.  The poem captures the innocence of soldiers who are put in harm's way without the faintest of idea that what they engage upon is the embodiment of futility and suffering.  The message of "Dulce  et Decorum Est" has value today for wars continue to be waged and young soldiers find themselves having to confront horrors that never leave them as a result.

The central message of the poem can be seen in the imagery that Owen uses to describe the soldier in World War I.  The mental picture of "old beggars under sacks" is matched with "coughing like hags" who trudge through sludge. The image of the soldier in World War I is far from the triumphant countenance that those of the propaganda machine wanted to paint.  From such illusion, this crushing reality has presented itself:

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.

Soldiers who die without any acknowledgement "under a green sea" of nerve gas is the reality that soldiers face on the World War I battle fields.  This reality is far removed from the belief that dying for country is what young men who are patriotic must do.  It is a departure from the ministry of defense's call to young men that serving in the war represents the ultimate sense of good. Owen writes how these "dreams" have become replaced with the visions of dead men who are "guttering, choking, drowning."  The once mighty strength of the soldier has been reduced to a shell of humanity, where death is almost a welcome relief but one where pain and suffering must happen before liberation can take place.  Once the soldiers face this reality, there is nothing that can be done to alleviate their pain.  It is for this reason that the central message of the poem is revealed in the repudiation of the lie behind patriotism and sacrifices that young men are told to make without any acknowledgement of the infernal realities that await them:

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.

Owen's message is one that inverts Horace's "It is sweet and fitting to die for your country" and subverts the attempts that the World War I propaganda machine easily made to millions of young men without recognizing the challenges that existed in front of them when they registered for service.

This central message that rejects war and those in the position of power who so easily wage it has much in way of relevance to the modern setting.  This is a valuable message to humanity. It is not merely suggesting that war is awful and morally challenging.  Owen's message is that there is a deliberate attempt of those in the position of power to perpetuate myths of patriotism and nationalism that conceals the reality that soldiers face.  Owen's message speaks to the propaganda and government initiatives that further "the old lie." In a world where those in the position of power easily send others to die in battle without revealing the full extent of what will be faced, Owen's message is poignantly meaningful to the modern setting.  This message is a timeless one for as old people wage it and young people die in it, the cycle of silencing voice continues.  It is to this end that Owen wishes to illuminate a message that enhances voice and rejects the machinery that so easily advances deception at the cost of reality.

How do comparisons in lines 1, 14, 20, and 23-24 enhance "Dulce et Decorum Est"?

The comparisons you refer to are notable for the way that they deliberately attempt to present war in an incredibly brutal and realistic way. Given the title, and its presentation of soldiers, we automatically summon up an image of smart soldiers in their uniform marching together and bravely fighting. The image in line 1 therefore deliberately contradicts our expectations by presents the soldiers as being "like old beggars under sacks." There are no smart, young, brave soldiers here, but only men who have been prematurely aged by their experiences.

The image in line 14, when the speaker sees his fellow soldier "drowning" through the gas mask likewise challenges our expectations of soldiers. We expect soldiers to meet their deaths in battle fighting against the enemy, but here we see the speaker's friend dying ignomoniously away from the from the front line by a gas attack, and "drowning" rather than dying in hand to hand combat.

In line 20, we are given an incredibly grim image of the corpse as "the hanging face" is described as being "like a devil's sick of sin." No noble, glorious death for this soldier, only a death that horrendously disfigures his body with his sufferings.

Lastly lines 23-24 emphasise the pain and agony that this dead soldier endured by focusing on how terrible his death was:

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues--

All of these images are therefore alike in the way that they profoundly challenge our ideas and expectations of soldiers and battle, presenting it as a terrible, dehumanising and demeaning experience involving tremendous suffering and no glory whatsoever. This of course supports the main message of this excellent poem.