A comparison of 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' and 'Exposure' by Wilfred Owen, showing how his poetry relates to the literary tradition of war poetry.

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Bethan Davies

A comparison of  ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and ‘Exposure’ by Wilfred Owen, showing how his poetry relates to the literary tradition of war poetry.

Traditional  war  poetry  gives  the  idea  of  patriotic  idealism  of  war.  This style  of  poetry  implies  that  war  is  patriotic  and  that  people  who  fight  for  their  country  are  honorable.  But  many  of  the  poets do not  portray war as it really is,  by  glossing  over  the  gory  details  with  attractive  images.  Many traditional  war  poems  were  written  before  the  war  to  persuade  and  encourage  young  boys  to  become  loyal  soldiers.  Many  of  the  soldiers were  taught  to  believe  that  they  were  the  chosen  few  and  they  were  delighted  to  take  part.  They  even  thanked  God, ‘Now,  God  be  thanked, Who  had  matched  us  with  His  hour’. The  capital  ‘H’  on  ‘His’  implies  the importance;  meaning  that  ‘His  hour’  is  God’s  war. This  makes  the  soldiers  even  more  delighted  and  thankful. And  the  worst  occurrence would  be  death. But  as  it  says  in  ‘The  Soldier’  by  Rupert  Brooke,  death doesn’t  last  long  and  everybody  shall  die  at  one  point,  so  why  not  die honorably  for  your  country?

Owen  and  many  other  ww1  poets  were a  contrast  to  traditional  poems. They wrote  about war  realistically.  They  wrote  from  personal  experience. They  include  horrific  details  of  death  and  injury.  They  also  criticized  those  who  were  running  the  war.

Wilfred Owen  was  born  in  1893  into  a  middle-class  family.  His  family came  under  financial  difficulties  and  his  education  was  stunted.  Nether  the  less  his  ability  of  poetry  writing  grew  fuelled  by  his  reading  of  romantics. In  his  twenties  he  went  through  life  going  from  one  badly  paid  job  to  another.  During  this  time he  had  little  spare  time  to  concentrate  on  writing  poetry.  In  August  1914  Wilfred  Owen  found himself  with  a  stable  job  as  a  private  tutor  of  a  French  family  in the Pyrenees.  This  is  when  he  had  his  first  encounter  with  Laurent Tailhade;  a  man apparently  more  preoccupied  with  literacy  and  financial  difficulties  than  war.  As  the  war  was  developing  the  pressure  to  take  part  in  conflict  grew  increasingly.  After  training , Owen   was  labeled  a  second  lieutenant.  All  his  romantic  notions  was  destroyed  by  the reality  of  war,  water-logged  trenches,  barbed  wire,  bombardments  and  machine  guns.  After  a  near  death  experience Owen was  transported  to  a  hospital  with  concussion.  But  he  still  had  the  images  of  his  many  brothers  and conrades  laying  motionless  around  him.  Owen didn’t escape  unharmed  he  was  diagnosed  with  shell-shock. He  was  then  posted  to  Craiglockhart  War  Hospital  for  observation  where  he  quickly  came  the  editor  of  ‘The  Hydra’ ,  the  hospital  magazine.  Whilst  Owen was in   the  hospital,  Siegfried  Sassoon   arrived. Owen  made  a  good  impression  on  Sassoon  and  he  recognized  the potential  in  his  poetry.  Encouraged  by  Sassoon, Owen  wrote  some  of  his  finest,  most  angry  and  compassionate  poems  at  that  time.  When  he  left  Craiglockhart  he  furthered  his  poetry  career  when  he  was   introduced  to  the  London  literary  society. Although  Owens  future  seemed  promising  Owen  decided   to  leave  this  safe  predictable  home  and  return  to  France  to  fight. He  fought  on  the  Beaurevoir – fousomme  line  and  was  awarded  the  military  cross.  But  during  his  time  in  France  he  fell  under  machine  fire.      

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The  two  poems  I  have  chosen  to  analyse  are  ‘Exposure’  and  ‘Dulce  Et  Decorum  Est’.  Both  of  these  were  written  by  Wilfred  Owen  after  1914.      

 The  subject  of  ‘Dulce  Et  Decorum  Est’  is  a  gas  attack  on  soldiers.  The poem  shows  the  devastating  effects  of  the  highly  poisonous  gas  on  the  soldiers.  We  are  shown  the  result  of  one  man  failing  to  put  on  his  gas mask  quickly  enough.  We  feel  the  agonising  pain  that  Owen  felt  when  he realises  he  could  not  do  anything  to  help  this  man.  We  see  the  nightmares  of  images ...

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