"Words of War"

By Matthew Dadley | Posted: Thursday June 29, 2023

This week Year 10 and 11 students got to see Poetry in Action, quite literally as a touring theatre company by the same name performed “Words of War''.

Through effective use of minimal props, quick costume changes, and a variety of characters we were introduced to the background of War Poet Wilfred Owen and the realities he and soldiers on the front line faced. We learned that poems were a way to evade censorship and share the horrors of what was happening in the War.

Among a number of poems performed, Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” was explored in rich detail; from the way Owen used metre (a rhythmic pattern) to create a steady and measured pace reflecting the soldiers' exhausted and weary state, to the way a range of sound devices create a clear sense of suffering. In a school where the words ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ frame our memorial archway, this poem, and the entire performance were a sober reminder of the lives lost fighting for flag and country, and hopefully connected a group of young people to the power of the spoken word.

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 gas-shells dropping softly behind.

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.

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

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.

Notes:

The Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”

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