“Her flowers to love”
“Blest by suns of home”
“Dreams happy as her day”
All these words and lines are particularly peaceful images and these types of phrases are used throughout the poem so there is no suggestion of pain. Brooke uses this style so that he can convince the reader that the Latin saying ‘Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori’ is true. The first line of the poem Brooke quotes “If I should die, think only this of me:” in this quote you can see that Brooke says If I should die so he is not convinced he will die or he expects to survive this is done so that the reader will believe that war is not destined to kill you and you have a lot of hope of surviving in war which is not the truth but it is what Brooke was trying to get across therefore he done it well.
Wilfred Owen was a poet who lived from 1893-1918. He was 25 when he was killed in the war. Owen called the Latin saying ‘Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori’ the old lie. In this essay I am going to look at two of Owens poems to show and explain in detail why Owen called this motto the old lie, these poems are; Anthem for Doomed Youth and Dulce et Decorum Est. Anthem for doomed youth is a well known poem that was wrote by Wilfred Owen. It is at complete contrast to Brookes poem The Soldier yet it is dealing with the same theme which is remembering the dead examples of this are that Brooke’s opening line to his poem is “If I should die” which gives a sense of hope for the soldiers survival and the title of Owen’s poem is “Anthem for Doomed Youth” which already lets the reader know that these soldiers have no chance of survival they are essentially ‘doomed’. At the start of the poem Owen asks the Question:
“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”
In this sentence the word cattle is a dehumanisation because he is talking about the people that died in the war and he is describing it as cattle also the word passing-bells is associated with a funeral. Therefore this is a good way to start the poem because the poem is about remembering the dead and Owen is asking the reader how can we remember the vast amount of dead if there is no funeral for them. Just this opening line tells the reader that Owen thinks war is harsh and he does not believe in the Latin saying because of his dehumanising and his sympathy for those soldiers that did not get a funeral. Owen then goes onto to say;
“Only the monstrous anger of the guns
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.”
In the first line he asked what passing bells for those who die as cattle and now Owen is saying there is no passing-bells for funerals all there is is the monstrous anger of guns and the rifles rapid rattle, to patter out their orisons which is associated with funerals as well because it means prayer. Owen talks about the noise of machinery because he is telling the reader that it is a horrific substitute for the passing-bells of a funeral service. This is at contrast to Brooke because Brooke did not mention anything about the destructive machinery that is essentially associated with war. The line “Can patter out their hasty orisons” means that all this noise is the only noise that can be heard over their quick prayers that they are making about their fellow soldiers. Owen then goes on to talk in more detail about funerals in the form of;
“No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs”
This is Owen feeling a great sympathy for the soldiers because of them missing a funeral that they highly deserve. This sentence means that the soldiers are getting the opposite to a funeral because there are no prayers or bells to celebrate their life and there is no mourning to help mourn their death. Owen now goes on to say what these soldiers that have died fighting for their country do have this is;
“The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires”
These two lines are telling the reader that instead of prayers and bells these soldiers have the shill and demented choirs of wailing shells which is a fantastic description and when reading that you can hear the noise that Owen has heard to be able to describe it like he did. But these soldiers do have Bugles calling for them which is an musical noise associated with funerals however these bugles would be miles away from the battle scene. In this section of the poem Owen is again firstly explaining what they should have but don’t have in a funeral and then he goes onto to say what they do have instead of a funeral this is a good way of telling the reader exactly what war is like and telling the reader that the Latin saying is not true and should be known as the old lie because if it is noble and honorable to fight and die for your country why is there no funeral for these great soldiers. Owen also in this poem talks about death on the battlefield an example of this is;
“Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.”
This is Owen referring to what he has witnessed on the battlefield and is mainly talking about death this is again at contrast to Brooke who never referred to anything bad or evil in his poem he only focused on positive thoughts whereas Owen tells the whole truth which he gets across to the reader very well because he has been there and witnessed these horrific things happening. This line is also very visual because when you read it you can imagine what Owen has witnessed on the battlefield this line being about the death of the young and they say goodbye through there eyes because they are unable to move or speak. Owen helps himself to get his point across to the reader by using incredible sound imagery in his poem so that the reader can almost put there selves on the battlefield and hear what Owen hears an example of this;
“Stuttering rifles rapid rattle”.
This line is a good example because of the alliteration that Owen uses by making a‘t’ appear five times in a four word phrase, t is a very hard letter so it is really good to use for sound imagery about the thing Owen is describing. This is an opposite to Brookes style of writing in “The Soldier” as Brooke uses softer letters like the letter ‘s’ which appears a number of times in Brookes poem. From the analysis that I have done of one of Owens poems it is clear to see that Owen does not believe in the Latin Phrase, Thus calling it ‘The Old Lie’.
I am now going to focus on the main poem in this essay which is called ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ it was written by Wilfred Owen and is perfect for this essay as in incorporates the concept of ‘The Old Lie’. I am going to start by talking about the form that Owen writes this poem in. This poem is broken into 3 sections and in each section there are eight lines, but Owen has been very clever about how he has arranged the poem because it is in order but like a film because in the first section it introduces you to the poem and gives the reader lots of visual imagery so that the reader can imagine the scene perfectly, then Owen builds up to what he is about to describe when he does describe the scene with the gas in the second and third section he does it in such a descriptive yet horrific it is very good to get the point across that Owen then makes in the extra four lines that he adds to the third section. The rhyme scheme in this poem is A, B, A, B, C, D, C, D. In the first stanza Owen focuses on visual descriptions to describe the atmosphere and build up the tension Owen starts off the poem with the lines;
“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge”
Owen starts off the poem with assonance in the three ‘b’ letters that are sounded in the first line also Owen uses a strong simile to degrade the way that they are being treated “like old beggars under sacks”. Owen also breaks up the lines to let the reader visualize everything that he describes before he moves on this gets the point across to the reader successfully. The reader can already tell from just the 1st line that Owens poem opposes the beliefs of Brooke’s and Tennyson’s because Owen has degraded war in the first line. Owen then writes;
“Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;”
These lines that Owen describe are very broken up and extremely visual because he tells you exactly what is happening without the reader having to work it out or think about it, also this line tells us that the soldiers are determined even though being sent to there death and they still go on even though they are exhausted. The next two lines are the end of the first stanza they quote;
“Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind”
The first of these two lines is carrying on describing the soldiers and how mistreated they are Owen is saying that the loud bombing and shots have damaged their ears to such an extent that they are now deaf even to the hoots, the second of these two lines is a great sound effective line because it is describing the hissing of gas from gas shells and Owen designs the line so that it has four ‘s’ letters in the line. This whole poem is at contrast to Brooke’s poetry and this is another example of this because Owen is talking about the destruction of war and focusing on the majority which is the negatives while Brooke only talks about what he claims to be the positives. The start of the second stanza has an immediate impact on the reader because it changes the speed at which you read the poem and gives a sense of emergency Owen writes;
“Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,”
Owen uses this technique of repetition to get the readers attention because this is an important point that Owen is trying to get across to the reader. This line is saying that the soldiers are being attacked by gas and they have to quickly put on the gas masks, this is an important point because Brook and Tennyson made people believe that it was a noble thing to die in combat but these poets were referring to hand to hand combat death which to an extent is honorable and noble, however Owen is now telling the public that hand to hand combat is not what goes on in war it is a series of attacks from an unknown enemy therefore it is no longer a noble thing to die in battle. The next two lines are descriptive enough for anyone to imagine exactly what is happening they quote;
“Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.”
The first line is referring to the gas then Owen uses a great simile so he then can describe how this soldier was dying. The simile is ‘As under a green sea’ and because he has described the gas as a green sea Owen can describe the death as drowning even though this soldier is above the ground. These two lines are powerful and to the point and Owen describes them this way to shock the reader so that they will no longer believe the Latin saying which is what Owen is trying to achieve. The next two lines are the final in the second stanza they are;
“In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”
The last three words of the second stanza are very visual but also the are noise adjectives, when you read them out loud you can hear the noise that this soldier was making, Owen wants the reader to be able to hear this so that the reader will understand just how horrific war really is. This is the exact opposite of Brooke’s poetry because it is describing a death that has happened in such a horrific war that it is automatically putting the reader off the idea that the Latin saying is true. In the third stanza Owen starts to prove and tell the reader his point, the first four lines are carrying on from the second stanza in describing the gruesome death of this soldier they read;
“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;”
In the first line the words ‘smothering dreams’ mean dreams that are smothering him or killing him. The last two lines in this quartet again are descriptive to such an extent that you see it in your mind without having to try and imagine what is being described. Words like ‘white eyes’, ‘writhing’ and ‘hanging’ are all descriptive words that Owen has used to get across his point. Owen then goes on to address the reader as ‘you’. Again in the next four lines Owen uses effective visual and sound descriptions to prove his point.
“If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
The main part in these four lines is the point where Owen addresses the reader because he has started to move on to the point he is trying to get across in the poem so Owen is telling the reader that if the reader could hear what he has heard felt what he has felt and see what he has seen then he says;
“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.
This is a perfect ending to the poem because he is addressing the reader and making it clear to the reader that he is saying the Latin saying is ‘The Old Lie’ and that this poem incorporates the concept of ‘The Old Lie’.
After all the visual and sound description Owen included in the poem which was supposed to shock and get the attention of the reader. Then Owen either let them believe the truth for themselves and if they didn’t then he quotes the truth at the end to be certain that everyone gets the point that Brooke and Tennyson are no longer right about war, that it is no longer sweet and fitting to die for your country and that war is certainly not noble and honorable.
The history of the old lie is that it means that it is sweet and fitting to die for your country. It was believed by many poets of whom two are known as Brooke and Tennyson. These are two well known poets that made the majority of the public believe in the old lie through their own poetic techniques which included positive thinking and heroism but through the poetry examined it can be seen that the attitudes to war have moved from believing the old lie and thinking that war is noble and honorable, to the majority thinking that war is horrific, evil and inhumane this is due to the effect of poems written by poets such as Wilfred Owen which had such an effect on peoples attitudes to war that they begin to believe a complete contrast of what they believed before. This is due to Owen explaining the concept of the old lie.
