If there is one central idea to glean from this study into the social and historical factors surrounding this poem, it is that it is never for a moment independent from the literary and artistic forces that are, even still part of the modern canon. In order to find a title Owen looks to the ancient Greeks, a people that valued conquest and the glory of war above many other aspects of life. He found an overriding statement that could be applied to modern times and self-consciously used this title to reflect the “roots” of traditional thoughts about war. It is also worth noting that Owen uses forms recognizable to the average late Victorian reader. “Dolce et Decorum Est” begins as a common sonnet, therefore the gruesome nature of much of the subject material—with all of its inherent filth, death, and chaos is transposed on a structure of poetry (the sonnet) that is all about the opposite; order, cleanliness and organization of through and prose. It is no accident that Owen used these recognizable forms to illustrate the flaws of the old ways of thinking and in some ways, one might even consider his poem to be rather postmodern in the sense that it heaps together “relics” of the intellectual past and attempts to superimpose them on a kind of newly created reality.

This poem would have far less meaning if it were devoid of the cultural and literary clues such as those mentioned above. In some ways it can be a considered a kind of sick parody of these recognizable poetic forms and themes (mainly war and its glory). By using thee methods as well as having the poem directly involve the reader and seem almost autobiographical in nature, Owen was able to transcend the rules of poetry and representations of war for the future. It seems as though it would be quite impossible for men to ever go back to feeling the way Achilles is said to have in the Greek dramas—grand and glorious; indestructible and willing to fight to the death. Still, as the shock over the horrors f war subsided and everything began to look a little less surreal, one might imagine, to the Victorians, they had to face the fact that the society that could see life, love, and war through rose-colored lenses had disappeared forever.

 Title

Owen starts out with some serious irony here. The title of his poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est," is actually a reference to one of Horace's Odes. (By the way, Horace was a Roman philosopher and poet.) The translated version might look something like this: "It is sweet and proper." We get a fuller version of the title in the last stanza of the poem. (Check out our "Detailed Summary" for a reading of this longer version.)

Can it really be "sweet and proper" for men to "march asleep?" Or for soldiers to march so long and fight so hard that they no longer resemble men at all? The "beggars" and "hags" of the first stanza sure don't seem like prime candidates for people that you'd want up on a national platform on Memorial Day. 

Maybe that's Owen's point. Irony is a major mode for this poem. It's not proper and it's sure not sweet to become "bent double" and "knock-kneed" (1,2). And we haven't even begun to talk about what happens when gas shells begin to drop.

Owen grew up in Britain in the early twentieth century, when most schoolchildren got a good smattering of Latin in their education, especially if they went to parochial schools. Horace's Odes were frequently read by schoolchildren – a point that certainly doesn't escape our author's attention. Kids are taught that dying in battle is a brave and honorable thing to do. After all, that's how heroes are made, right? 

In Owen's opinion, this couldn't be further from the truth. Emphasizing the gruesome details of his real experiences during the war allows him to demonstrate the emptiness of war. If schoolbooks teach us what heroes ought to do, his poem seeks to show us just how un-heroic wartime action can be.

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