Dulce Et Decorum

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Examine the way Owen presents conflict in Dulce et Decorum est. Refer to the about the other poems in your answer. We can see the different aspects of war and what effect it had on the mind of different people and artists such as poets in their work. Many poets glamourized war, attracting it with their pen and giving it a beautiful look by glorifying death and considerate young blood that were fighting for their homeland. For example the poem “The soldier” by Rupert Brooke painted war with the highlights of glamorous and logic. However, in Wilfred Owen’s poem Dulce et Decorum est he expressed the futility of war in various difference ways. ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ by Wilfred Owen and ‘The Soldier’ by Rupert Brooke are poems about war but treat the subject completely differently. There are a number of comparisons between ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘The Soldier’. The titles of each poem are misleading, in the sense that what they suggest is contradicted in the content of the poem. ‘The Soldier’ suggests and conjures up sad, or a wasted life. But the poem itself revels in the fact that fighting in war for the sole purpose of defending one’s country is memorable, hence encouraging the act “And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given”. On the other hand, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ brings about patriotism, which it is sweet and seemly to die for one’s country. The poem reveals the cold truth about war with dislike, therefore discouraging the act. In the first stanza of ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, the reader is drawn in with “Bent double”. This give a sense of closeness which is deeply fixed in the detailed description of the experience that follows. There is nothing prior to this, making it have quite an impact. The whole stanza is conveying the scene by the use of intense imagery.

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