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Dulce Et Decorum Est
Dulce Et Decorum Est
By Wilfred Owen
1893-1918
Wilfred Owen
• Wilfred Owen was born om March 18,
1893.
• He was on the Continent, teaching, when
he decided to visit a hospital for the
wounded and then decided, in
September 1915, to return to England
and enlist in the war (that’s WW1).
Wilfred Owen
• He said “I came out [to the war] in
order to help these boys—directly by
leading them as well as an officer
can; indirectly, by watching their
sufferings that I may speak of them
as well as a pleader can. (October,
1918)
Wilfred Owen
• Owen was injured March 1917 and sent
home; he was fit for duty in August 1918,
and returned to the front.
• On November 4th, just seven days before
the Armistice, he was caught in a
German machine gun attack and killed.
• He was 25 years old when he died.
Wilfred Owen
• The bells were ringing on November
11, 1918, in Shrewsbury, England, to
celibrate the Armistice, when the
doorbell rang at his parent’s home,
bringing them the telegram to tell
them their son was dead.
“Dulce Et Decorum Est”
Lets look at the poem together, and
analyse it using the TPCASTT method.
T
in the title? What connotations or associations do the words posses?
Paraphrase Translate the poem in your own words. What is the poem about?
P
Connotation What meaning does the poem have beyond the literal meaning? Fill in the chart
C
below.
Attitude What is the speaker’s attitude? How does the speaker feel about himself, about
A
others, and about the subject? What is the author’s attitude? How does the
author feel about the speaker, about other characters, about the subject, and the
reader?
Shifts Where do the shifts in tone, setting, voice, etc. occur? Look for time and place,
S
keywords, punctuation, stanza divisions, changes in length or rhyme, and
sentence structure. What is the purpose of each shift? How do they contribute
to effect and meaning?
Title Reanalyze the title on an interpretive level. What part does the title play in the
T
overall interpretation of the poem?
Theme List the subjects and the abstract ideas in the poem. Then determine the overall
T
theme. The theme must be written in a complete sentence.
Title
Theme statements:
War is not the path to glory.
Death as the result of war is seldom glorious.
Exhaustion and suffering are the terrible
consequences of war.
Dying for one’s country may not be noble.
The glorification of war is horribly wrong.