Dulce Et Decorum Est And Ww1 Poetry Analysis

World War One was the first of its kind, men used toxic gasses as weapons, there were tanks, airplanes, and other technological advances. The mass development of war also means there are more ways to kill the enemy. Isaac Rosenberg’s “Break of Day in the Trenches” and Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” are both poems that depict World War One as hellish and evil in nature, as soldiers, they are surrounded by death. Both poets represent death in an ironic way, because war is considered hellish and gruesome, people die, and Owen shows the irony between the romanticized war while Rosenberg shows irony through the freedom of a rat; the two poets alludes to death in devices such as imagery. “Break of Day in the Trenches” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” stand in for death because they use war as a paradox. They expect their readers, like many writers do, to take things lightly such as war. War is often …show more content…
The title alone is ironic because its translation is it’s sweet to die for one’s country, yet Owen says, “watch the white eyes writhing in his face,/His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” (19-20). There is nothing romantic about death nor a, “hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” (20), how Owen describes the men and the dead soldier is nightmarish. Owen’s also states, “the blood/Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” (21-22) which is also a nightmarish description that is ironic to the poem because this is nothing sweet or something someone should be proud of. The poem list many horrific scenes that he’s witness but as the title of the poem indicates that they should be proud to die, no matter how gruesome, because they are dying and fighting for their country. The readers’ are the ones who romanticize war and when they read that they can visualize how terrible war