Owens" feelings towards the atrocities in WW1 are made particularly clear in the poems that he composed during his time serving in the British army in the First World War itself. He made his feelings particularly felt in the poem, Dulce et Decorum est, where the atmosphere of brooding sadness is interrupted by Owen as he criticises the poetess of the time: Jessie Pope. Pope's poems overtly glorify the war effort ("Who'll swell the victor's ranks?") with repetition being used ("Are you, my laddie? Will you, my laddie?"), as well as allusions to Romeo and Juliet ("Who'll stand and bite his thumbs?"). Owen ingeniously censures Pope's poems and the overall war effort in the final line of Dulce with the line "you would not tell The old Lie".
Owen brings across many other feelings in Dulce et Decorum est. The title of the piece itself is taken from a Roman poem composed by Horace, who was very patriotic, which contrasts with Owen's negative views towards the war. Within then first few lines of the poem Owen includes several examples of stylish alliteration ("Bent double, like old beggars Knock-kneed") to further enhance the grotesque imagery that he incorporates within the poem itself. Alliteration is also present within other poems by Owen, such as Anthem for Doomed Youth, where alliteration is cleverly integrated within the poem, coalesced with powerful adjectives and onomatopoeic language ("stuttering rifles rapid rattle").
Also within the first verse of Dulce is an emotive graphic description with elongated vowel sounds ("sludge trudge") to accentuate the tortuously slow nature of their progress across the battlefield. The complex, varied sentences within the poem are immediately followed by short sharp sentences to add variety to the tempo and so the reader understands the randomness and complexity that Owen felt about the war. Dulce et Decorum est is full of poignant visual objects that Owen describes very strikingly.
