"If in some smothering dreams you too could paceBBC has an interesting production about Owen and Sigfriend Sasson.
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."
Wilfred Owen
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Dulce Et Decorum Est:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Very cool. This is one of my favorite poems. I sometimes think, "Where are our war poets now?" Who is this generation's Wilfred Owen?
ReplyDeleteThis poem was the first anti-war poem I ever read, I think. It's a great one.
ReplyDeleteI use this in Hum 1100--students generally don't get it, but after a little explaining they figure it out.
ReplyDeleteI too wonder about our war poets. In a related avenue, I heard the guy who Hayduke (in Abbey's Monkey wrench Gang) is based off being interviewed on RadioWest today. He said that he though by now there would be 100s of Edward Abbeys but, he says, there are none. Maybe our generation is too comfortable.