Thursday 15th November 2007 Joe Hemingway 9W
‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’
In 1914 the First World War began. Many countries were involved in the war like England, France, Germany and many more. The poem I am going to talk about was written by a poet called Wilfred Owen. Wilfred Owen was born on the 18th march 1893 in oswestry, Shropshire, son of Thomas and Susan Owen. After the death of his grandfather in 1897 the family moved to Birkenhead (Merseyside). Owens earliest experiments in poetry began at the age of 17.Owen became increasingly aware of the magnitude of the war and returned to England in September 1915 to enlist in the Artists’ Rifles a month later. In 1917 in January Wilfred Owen was sent to France and saw his first action in which he and his men were forced to hold a flooded dug-out in no-mans land for fifty hours whilst under heavy bombardment.Unfotunately Wilfred Owen died a week before the great war ended. The news of his death reached his parents on November 11th 1918, the day of the armistice. The poem I am talking about is called ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ which means it is sweet and proper. The poem is about what goes on during the war and how terrible and scary war is. The poem mainly talks about soldiers on the front-line and soldiers in the trenches. The poem mentions all the daily struggles soldiers went through and what war is truly like.
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Peer Reviews
Here's what a star student thought of this essay
Quality of writing
And on the language, it is not appropriate to see colloquial language in analytical answers where Standard English is required. "war is not all it's cracked up to be (sic)" is unacceptable as it is not written with the correct standards expected of GCSE English candidates. In the future, make sure all analytical responses avoid the use of colloquial language.
Level of analysis
The Level of Analysis is evidently quite poor, with the candidate dissipating much of their energies on commenting or simplifying what Owen says in his poem, with only a very brief and shallow attempt at the analysis of it. There is almost no appreciation of the context either - at this time, Owen had been admitted to Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh and had time to reflect on the travesties of war; the pity of war. This must be recognised as Owen is not sitting and mourning the imminent death of soldiers as he can be said to be doing in 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' for example, where he had only very recently joined the front-line - in 'Dulce et Decorum est', he vividly describes with extremely powerful language the torture of one man intoxicated by mustard gas. There should be a greater focus on the language here, as it is a very important driving factor behind the effect of this poem.
Response to question
This is an answer in receipt of a question that asks candidate to consider the effect of Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce et Decorum est'. The answer focuses on very few of the necessary analytical points of the poem, and instead of opting to talk at length about what actually counts, there is a simple translation of what Owen is saying, with what little effective analysis there is used on ridiculously insignificant words like "but" - Wilfred Owen, having been to the front-line of the most gruelling war in history can say a lot better and give greater effect than with just "but". It is important the candidate comments at length on the words and phrases that count - their emotive resonance and what they tell us about Owen's attitude to war at the time (regardless of the over-arching anti-War value, Owen's specific attitude changed from poem to poem e.g. resignation in 'Strange Meeting'; nightmarish insanity in 'Mental Cases'; and antiestablishmentarian satire in 'Dulce et Decorum est').