For my poetry essay, I have chosen Dulce et Decorum Est because it is based on reality. It is about World War I and the constant nightmares that a former soldier lived during that time. He is re-living those awful days by the constant nightmares and memories that will never fade. Imagine having to go through life with the burden on your back of all the people you saw die. Your friends, your comrades, and all those young souls that were lost for defending our country. Imagine the pain and suffering that went on them. And then, compare it to now. Sadness all around us, and we can't help but to live with it.
This poem was written by Wilfred Owen during WWI. Born Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, March 18 1893, was an English soldier and poet. He was one of the leading poets of WWI. His realistic poetry about the horror of trenches and gas warfare was influenced by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon. He has also written other poems such as Insensibility, Anthem for Doomed Youth, Futility, and Strange Meting. He passed away on November 4 1918. Dulce et Decorum Est was published around the 1920s. The tittle was taken from Roman poet Horace. The tittle means, it is sweet and honorable. This poem is about a day in the battlefields of WWI. About how the soldiers are mentally and physically damaged by what they lived during and after the war. Imagine you are done for the night and them, bam, you get hit by gas shells. They run to put their gas masks on but not all make it. There is fog everywhere and you can't see what is around you. Only the smoke from the bombs. And then you see your comrades gasping for air because they couldn't reach their masks on time. Drowning in that poisonous gas, and as much as you want to help you can't because you are trying to survive and you can't really see your surroundings. And when it is all over, you are left to clean up the mess and pick up all the fallen heroes and that is something that sticks with you forever and lives within you forever.