Comparing Poems, The Soldier & Dulce et Decorum est.

In the poem dulce et the title is misleading as Owen goes on to reveal the cold truth about war and tells us,
‘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”.
Wilfred Owen puts the title in Latin to make the poem more realistic, as if ‘The old lie’ has been told for centuries. The Latin used at the end of the poem means 'It is sweet and honourable to die for your country', a concept Owen is strongly denying throughout this poem.

The title, ‘The Soldier’ evokes a wasted life but the poem shows that in fact it is honourable to die for your country. The poem was written at the start of the war to try and convince young men to go to war as ‘The Soldier’ could be anybody and applies to all.

Throughout the first stanza of Dulce et it is slow and sets the scene. Owen uses effective similes to portray a tone of dirty, grimy experiences the soldiers had to go through. ‘Like beggars under sacks.’ Lets you feel the restrictive movement of the soldiers. ‘Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots but limped on”. This draws you in with the graphic war scene. also in the opening stanza is characterised by language about 'fatigue': the soldiers 'marched asleep', they 'trudge', and 'limped on'. They are 'deaf', 'lame' and 'blind'; all rather pitiful language intended to reveal the reality of war and its effects. “The word ‘trudge’ is effective as it puts across how its hard work to keep moving and are beyond the point of tiredness.
To begin the second stanza, Owen uses ‘Gas! GAS! Quick boys!’ to make a chaotic scene. ‘Fumbling’ truly signifies the soldiers’ state of panic and juxtaposition. ‘Stumbling’ implies that they can’t find their feet and are falling over a lot. Owen writes about a man who does not manage to put his helmet on in time and is consumed in gas and ‘floundering like a man in fire or lime...’ The use of the word fire makes you imagine hell and a painful death.

In the third stanza, it gives an up close detail of someone dyeing and the horror of it when it’s right in front of you. The speaker describes a vision in a dream of a gas victim 'guttering, choking, drowning'. The listed verbs are associated with a lack of air and death.

In the last stanza, it’s as if he is inviting the reader to come see how bad this was actually seeing it not just hearing/reading about it. How hard it was to get away quick enough from the gas and that it was a horrible sight with the most awful sounds around him. He basically is trying to say that if they saw these themselves they wouldn’t ever join up.

the language used in the sections depicting the gas attack is strong, representing both the anguish of the victims of the gas attack as well as the effect on those haunted by what they have seen: 'watch the white eyes writhing in his face, / His hanging face'. The repetition of the word 'face' makes it clear which element disturbs the speaker most: the transformation in the face of the victim. The use of alliteration on the 'w' sound reflects the agonised twisting of the gas victim. The opening of the poem suggests Owen pities the state to which the soldiers have fallen. Instead of youthful, strong fighters they are 'Bent double', 'Knock-kneed, coughing like hags'. Owen's imagery presents the men as prematurely old and weakened. War has broken these men, and they are described in the most unglamorous, inglorious manner. Owen's bitterness at this transformation is obvious.

Owen's disillusionment with war is also clear from the closing lines of the poem. After describing the horrifying effects of the gas attack he addresses the reader:

'My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie' He is rejecting the accepted attitude back at home that serving your country in war is glorious. He is critical of the 'high zest', or great enthusiasm, used to convince men to go to war. He sees war as brutal and wasteful of young lives. His choice of the word 'children' is also significant; impressionable young men are almost lured to war by the promise of 'desperate glory'.