Skip to main content
SWStudyWalks Search

English Literature / Unit 16   ENL 1534 short lesson, about 20 seconds

Wilfred Owen: "Dulce et Decorum Est"

Captions available

The idea

Wilfred Owen, killed in November nineteen eighteen, a week before the Armistice, wrote of trench horror under Sassoon's influence. "Dulce et Decorum Est," drafted in nineteen seventeen, describes a gas attack, "Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!", and calls Horace's motto "The old Lie."

In practice

A gas attack; the old Lie.

Where people slip

Most of Owen's poems appeared after his death.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it  ·  Sources for English Literature