Opinions on this War Poem?

[Canadian Caesar]

I remember when we had to read this WWI inspired Poem in High School English.
I thought it was a pretty good one then.
And somehow, it had the opposite effect on me than it had on my friends.
It actually encouraged me to persue a life in the military.
I guess just killing the hollywood image isn't enought to kill the desires of the heart...
I didn't think that it in any way belittled the life of a soldier, it seems to try and promote the reality of the difficulty of a Soldier's life.
Not something to be romanticized.

Anyways, I wanted to hear what you guys thought.

Dulce Et Decorum
Est Wilfred Owen

Translation: *Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mori. = (Sweet and fitting it is, to die for one's country.)*

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 disappointed shells 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...

 

[Canadian Caesar]

-BUMP-

And no opinions?
Hmmm......

 

[redleafjumper]

Owen is a celebrated war poet and this is one of his best works.  You may also have encountered some of the writing of his platoon commander, Siegfried Sassoon who caused Owen's work to be published after the war.  They are very much in the genre of anti-war poetry, written by those who were there, expressing what they were seeing and feeling at the time.  The first world war produced many gifted writers, even if some were plainly romantic fools (consider: ...if I should fall think only this of me that there is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England... - I'm probably misquoting it, but that's close), others developed their styles throughout the war.  Owen is particularly cynical and very much in a different tradition from writers such as Tennyson writing in an earlier time in a more romantic style with works such as "The Charge of the Light Brigade" .  Sadly, Owen died in World War 1, a great loss to poetry and literature.

I like Kipling as an writer who is "pro-military" and descriptive of the lifestyle at the time.  I recall that he lost a son in WW1.  Robert Service's work is also a pleasant read, in particular his "Rhymes of a Red-cross Man" about his experiences in WW1.

 

[pronto]

After Kipling lost his son in the war, he became very embittered, and wrote some famous and virulent anti-war diatribes. Look up "They Lied"

Wow - big difference from "White Man's Burden"

 

[pronto]

I'll save you all the hassle of looking it up:

"If any question why we died.
Tell them, because our fathers lied."

Short, sweet, to the point, and bitter as He11

 

[redleafjumper]

Yes it is quite true, Kipling did become embittered over the loss of his son. The poem you refer to is one of his epitaphs called Common Form.  World War 1, the so-called Great War, or war to end all wars, while really not the first "world war" was certainly one with tremendous impact on western civilization due to the static nature of the fighting, use of new technology including but not limited to gas, machine guns, aircraft, long range artillery and the terrible conditions and casualties over the long years.  I well remember seeing those thousands of names of the missing engraved on the walls of such monuments as the Menin Gate at Ypres and the Vimy Memorial.  Certainly this horror could not fail to have a great affect upon writers and poets of the time and after.  Kipling was certainly one of those so affected who wrote of it.  Some of Kipling's  other pieces really strike you.  Part of his Recessional 1897 is still used by the Royal Canadian Legion in its ceremonies - ...Lord God of Hosts be with us yet, Lest we forget - Lest we forget...  His epitaphs are great.  Here are a few of my favourites:

Two Canadian Memorials
          I
We giving all gained all.
Neither lament us nor praise.
Only in all things recall,
It is Fear, not Death, that slays.

          II

From little towns in a far land we came,
To save our honour and a world aflame.
By little towns in a far land we sleep;
And trust that world we won for you to keep!

The Sleepy Sentinel

Faithless the watch that I kept: now I have none to keep.
I was slain because I slept: now I am slain I sleep.
Let no man reproach me again, whatever watch is unkept -
I sleep because I am slain.  They slew me because I slept.

Hindu Sepoy in France

This man in his own country prayed we know not to what
Powers.
We pray Them to reward him for his bravery in ours.

Kipling's other more famous works such a Danny Deever and Tommy are really terrific, too, but he is probably best known for the Jungle Book.

 

[redleafjumper]

It occurs to me that this thread really isn't properly radio chatter, it would probably be better placed in military literature.

 

[Canadian Caesar]

Huh...

I didn't know there was a thread for that...

 

[redleafjumper]

Cdn Caesar, there are a lot of threads here, probably enough to sew a smock!  A scan of the subsections in the forums list is helpful for seeing what others have started.  It would seem that this one has been moved there by the powers that be. 

Have you read any other of Owen's or Sassoon's works, or Kipling's for that matter?

 

[Canadian Caesar]

I could use a Smock! ;D

I have read a few, though the only one that I have actually dedicated myself to reading more of is Kipling.

I find it odd that one poem will be inspiring and the next will provoke indifference.
With no real apparent difference between them.

I guess that is the mystique of poetry, no?

 

[mainerjohnthomas]

I could use a Smock! ;D

I have read a few, though the only one that I have actually dedicated myself to reading more of is Kipling.

I find it odd that one poem will be inspiring and the next will provoke indifference.
With no real apparent difference between them.

I guess that is the mystique of poetry, no?

    This poem was a good one.  Kipling had many, some average, some fantastic.  I lived with a Kipling in my Ruck my entire career in the field.  "The Grave of the Hundred Dead" was the one I always liked the best, far more inspiring than the military idiocy of Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade".  For some really good contemporary war poetry, try the collection known as "Dead Man's Boots", it is a collection of poems from Foreign Legion, and many are quite good.