Wilfred Owen - Dulce Et Decorum Est - Analysis. Poetry Lecture by Dr. Andrew Barker

Описание: DULCE ET DECORUM EST. One hundred years old and still the most effective anti-war poem ever written, "Dulce Et Decorum Est" was composed near the end of the First World War by Wilfred Owen, a poet who had actually experienced the horrors of the trenches. Owen gives us the harsh reality behind the wartime recruiting phrase, "It is sweet and fitting to die for your country", as he recounts a friend's death during a gas attack. It contains, for me, some of the most powerful moments in poetry: "If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood / Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs."

Note: Explanation of "cursed through sludge" contains profanity (10:00 -- 10:25).

Note. Also, the gas the soldiers are attacked with would have been chlorine gas, not mustard gas as stated in the lecture.


Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
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 tired, outstripped five-nines that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.
--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.


In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.


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.

Wilfred Owen



Andrew Barker's poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est, 2020" in which Owen's poem underpins the situation in a hospital at the time of Coronavirus can be found at    • Modern Sonnet 231. Dulce Et Decorum Est, 2...   This poem is both homage and modern-day reimagining of the horrors portrayed in this lecture.

Andrew Barker's poetry can be found on Instagram at andrewbarkerwriter.

Please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE. COMMENTS also are gratefully received. Click http://andrewbarker.info should you wish for extra notes and a transcript of the lecture and analysis above.
Andrew Barker