Intro War Poetry & Dulce et Decorum Est

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Dulce et Decorum Est

Literature

What do you know
about WWI?

WW1

• More countries wanted power and land;
  basically they all wanted to the biggest and strongest
  
  
• Some countries made agreements to help each other if one was attacked in times of war, which lead to tensions. 

WW1

• The bomb burst when Franz Ferdinand from Austria-Hungary was killed by a Serbian nationalist.
  
  
• His assassination caused a chain reaction as many countries had promised their allies to help them.

The chain reaction

• Austria-Hungary declared war to Serbia
• Russia started mobilising, as they thought they should protect other Slavic countries
• Germany declared war to Russia
• France (Russia's ally) was also attacked by Germany, because they were afraid for a war on two fronts
• Great-Britain declared war to Germany when they invaded Belgium
• The United States joined in 1917

In the beginning

• Countries used propaganda (posters, newspapers, speeches) to say the war was something heroic and necessary.
  
  
• Also found in literature (especially poems).
  We'll deal with this during the coming lessons, so keep this in mind.

However, during the war

• Soldiers realised the war was horrific, so we also see a change in the poems they wrote.
  
  
• Started writing about realistic situations and the daily lives of soldiers, which involved fear, illnesses, injuries and food shortages.
  
  
• The war also led to "shell shock"
  (early type of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)

After the war

• WW1 had huge impact on England: about 723.000 people died and more than 1.6 million people were injured.
  
  
• The war is still remembered nowadays during Remembrance Day

About the author

• Wilfred Owen
• 1893 - 1918

What does the year of his death (1918) tell us?

About the author

• Owen died during WWI.
• He had enlisted voluntarily.
• Killed one week before the
   armistice (wapenstilstand)
   was signed.

About the author

• One of many poets who
   has written about WWI.
  
  
• Others were Brooke and
   Sassoon, which we will
   discuss later on in this term.

What do the following words mean?

knock-kneed

lame

fumbling

stumbling

plunges

gargling

gorgelend

grijpen

met x-benen

struikelend

kreupel

geklungel

Let's continue

By answering the questions

What are the two elements that you need to describe when a setting is asked?

What is the setting of this poem?

What is the setting of this poem?

Time: WWI

Place: on a battlefield (back towards their camp)

What is a stanza?

2. Describe in your own words what happens in the first two stanzas.

Discuss in pairs or groups of three

Stanza 1

• Tired soldiers are walking back to their camp from a battlefield. Suddenly they are attacked by their enemy who uses gas.

Stanza 2

•  The soldiers put on their masks. 
• One, however, fails to do so and is choking in the gas. 
• (He isn’t dead yet, but he is dying!)
  

Connect the figure of speech to the description.

A comparison without the words as or like.

A comparison with the words as or like.

A lifeless object is given a human trait.

personification

metaphor

simile

humanification

hyperbole

Question 3

Examine the two figures of speech in the first two lines.

Decide what they are and what is being compared.

3a. What figure of speech is this? Metaphor or simile?

1. metaphor
2. simile

3b. What two things in each
case are being compared?

3c. What image is created by these figures of speech?

Discuss this in pairs or groups of three

Correct answer:

The soldiers are a sorry sight, not the strong energetic men you normally associate with soldiers

4. What words show how tired the soldiers are?
(Do not use the similes from question 3)

Possible answers:

• bent double (dubbel gevouwen; shows how they walk)
• knock-kneed (x-benen)
• trudge (sjokken)
• men marched asleep
• limped (strompelen)
• lame (kreupel)
• drunk with fatigue (vermoeidheid)
• deaf (to the hoots)

5. What happens to the 'someone' in stanza two and why?

Discuss this in pairs or groups of three

Correct answer

The someone is dying because he couldn’t put on his gas mask in time.

6a. Stanza 3 is one long 'if-sentence'. If you..., you wouldn't ...

Discuss this in pairs or groups of three

Possible answer

If you also had nightmares about young men dying a horrible death,

(then) you wouldn’t tell new recruits it is honourable to die for your country.

6b. Who is the 'you'?

Answer

• The people recruiting new soldiers. 
• You could therefore also say the Government.

6c. Why is there a sentence in Latin? What is it used for in war?

Discuss in pairs or groups of three.

Correct answer

It comes from a Roman poet and during the war it was used as a means of propaganda.

7. What is Owen's intention in writing in this poem?

Discuss in pairs or groups of three.

Correct answer

• He wants to show that the propaganda used by the Government is false. 
• He wants to show the real horrors of the war.

Focus on the descriptive / graphic* language

*graphic = strong, possibly offensive

8a. Give at least three examples
of this type of language

Examples:

• blood-shod
• like a man in fire or lime
• guttering, choking, drowning
• flung him in
• writhing in his face
• hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin
• blood come gargling
• froth-corrupted lungs
• obscene as cancer
• bitter as the cud
• vile, incurable sores

8b. Why did he use
this descriptive language?

Correct answer

• He probably wanted to shock people. 
• Using less graphic language would probably not get the horrors of the situation across.

9. What is ironic about
what the Government
tells new recruits?

Correct answer

They say it is honourable to die for you country, but obviously it isn’t.

I think I understand this text well enough for the test.

Yes

No