All Quiet on the Western Front War Poetry All Quiet on the Western Front

How to Read Poetry Read poem several times; then . . . Identify speaker, subject situation, and tone Examine grammar—note deviations Relate to your experiences Examine each word—connotation/denotation Figurative language—metaphors, similes, images, or symbols Listen to the sound and rhythm Consider form and structure Consider stated and implied values—social, cultural, moral Consider how your values effect interpretation

“Dulce Et Decorum Est” By Wilfred Owen Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,  Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs  And towards our distant rest began to trudge.  Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots  But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;  Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots  Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

Stanza Two Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! –  An ecstasy of fumbling,  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;  But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,  And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .  Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,  As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. 

Stanza Three In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,  He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. 

Stanza Four If in some smothering dreams you too could pace  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.

How to Read Poetry Read poem several times; then . . . Identify speaker, subject situation, and tone Examine grammar—note deviations Relate to your experiences Examine each word—connotation/denotation Figurative language—metaphors, similes, images, or symbols Listen to the sound and rhythm Consider form and structure Consider stated and implied values—social, cultural, moral Consider how your values effect interpretation

Wilfred Owen He was born March 18, 1893 in Shropshire England. He is noted for his anger at the cruelty and waste of war. Although thought himself a pacifist, he enlisted in 1915. Began writing poems about his war exeriences. 1917 Owen was badly concussed after a shell landed just two yards away from him. He spent several days in a bomb crater with the mangled corpse of a fellow officer. Afterward, he was diagnosed as suffering from shell-shock and sent to a military hospital. Here he showed his poem written while in the trenches to another poet who suggested he publish his poems. On August 1918, he returned to the Western Front. He was killed by machine gun fire on November 1918 His poems were published after his death.

Poetry Activity Apply the guidelines for reading Poetry to the poem “Futility” by Wilfred Owen. First let’s read the poem. . .

Futility By Wilfred Owen Move him into the sun— Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France. until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know. Think how it wakes the seeds,-- Woke, once, the clays of a cold star Are limbs, so dear—achieved, are sides, Full-nerved—still warm,--too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? --O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth’s sleep at all?