Poets

of the

Great War

Poetry from the First World War was written by soldiers who served at the Western Front.

• They saw the horrors of War first hand.

• They wrote about what they really saw.

• Their poems were published just after the war, so they were not censored. They are

first hand and often unbiased sources.

“Above all I am not concerned with Poetry.  My subject is War, and the pity of War…    Yet these elegies are to this generation in

no sense consolatory… All a poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets

must be truthful.”

Wilfred Owen, from a preface to a planned book of his poetry.

HOW TO STUDY POETRY(Using the “Onion Peeling” Approach)1. Personal Response2. Annotation3. Analysis4. Evaluation

WILFRED OWENWilfred Owen is one of the more famous War Poets.

He was born March 18th, 1893.

He joined the Army in 1915 as an Officer in the “Artists

Rifles”.

Wilfred Owen served in some of the worst conditions during

the following months.

GAS MASK1.What are your immediate thoughts when you look at the gas mask? What emotions does it conjure up?

2. Put on the gas mask. How does wearing it make you feel?

3. What would it mean to you to have to carry this gas mask around with you at all times?

4. What does the gas mask suggest to you about the conditions under which World War One was fought?

Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est” - the title of the poem can be translated as “It is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country”.

DULCE ET DECORUM ESTBy Wilfred Owen

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 gas shells dropping softly 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 flound’ring 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.

November 4th, 1918: Owen and his men went ‘over the top’.

He was shot and killed by German machine guns on the banks of the

Sambre-Ouse Canal.

The War ended just a week later on November 11th.

Wilfred Owen was 25 years old.

•The title of the poem suggests something sacred and honourable. Underline words/phrases that indicate that war is neither of these things.

•Find all the words/phrases that describe the soldiers. What do these suggest?

•The poem seems to be divided in two. Mark this division, and make a note of how the poem changes.

•How does the persona describe his dreams? Find all the words that he uses to describe them.

•Circle the incident that causes the persona to feel the way he does about the motto Dulce et Decorum Est…

•Highlight anything about the rhythm that you find interesting.

•What happens in the final four lines? Who is the persona speaking to? Are there links between these four lines and the rest of the poem?