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Assessment Task Cover Sheet

Unit Co-ord./Lecturer Jo Jones

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Student ID 081343
Student Name Simon Burnett
Unit Code EMT615
Unit Name Secondary English-Literacy: Curriculum Investigation
Assessment Task
Assessment Task 1: Literary Critique
Title/Number
Word Count 1211
I declare that all material in this assessment task is my own work except where there is clear acknowledgement or reference
to the work of others and I have complied and agreed to the University statement on Plagiarism and Academic Integrity on
the University website at www.utas.edu.au/plagiarism *

Signed

Simon Burnett

Date 22 AUG 2014

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EMT615 Secondary English-Literacy: Curriculum Investigation

Simon Burnett

Assessment 1

Write a critical passage about one of the passages provided (see MyLo). At the
end of your analysis design ten critical questions you could use to explore the
ideological meanings of the text with students.

The poem I have selected is Dulce Et Decorum Est, by British poet Wilfred
Owen. The poem was written in 1917, a few months before Owens death, and like most
of his work was published posthumously in 1920. Wilfred Owen is, along with fellow
Englishman and personal friend Siegfried Sassoon and the Canadian John McRae,
considered to be one of the most influential and important poets of the First World War.
The name of the poem, along with its final two lines, is taken On Virtue, which
appears in Book 3 of the Odes by the Roman lyrical poet Horace.
Dulce Et Decorum Est is built around the structure of two sonnets. While the
line breaks are irregular and do not match the traditional format, the length (two sets of
fourteen lines) and rhyme patters are consistent with the sonnet form. The form was
likely chosen due to familiarity the sonnet was what many early modern English and
Italian poets specialised in. Particularly, William Shakespeare wrote dozens of them,
and his works were as ubiquitous in the classrooms of a century ago as they are now if
not more so. This allowed Owen to use a structure he was presumably used to working
in to bring his view of the front line to people who would be familiar with the form, but
unfamiliar with the content. The rhyme scheme of the poem, in keeping with the sonnet
style, is also regular and easy to follow. It also bears close resemblance to the French
ballade poetic form, another familiar, lyrical structure. Viewing the final four lines as a
coda allows the remainder of the poem to fit into the three stanzas of eight lines typical

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EMT615 Secondary English-Literacy: Curriculum Investigation

Simon Burnett

Assessment 1

of the French ballade, but again broken in irregular ways (and lacking a refrain, which is
usually a feature of the form). The use of the French ballade can also be considered a
tribute of sorts to the country where Owen did most of his fighting during the war.
Owen appears to be valuing narrative impact over adherence to traditional form with his
choice of breaks between stanzas in this poem.
The poem is split into two narrative parts, which match up roughly with the two
sonnet-lengths which make up the poem. The first is descriptive and present-tense,
articulating the struggles being endured by soldiers on the front. The line break brings
into sharp focus the shift from the drudgery of the march to the instant panicked rush of
a gas attack. After creating an impression of an endless struggle where thought (men
marched asleep) and even time no longer matter, the narrator possibly but by no
means certainly Owen watches a comrade die before his eyes due to not being able to
apply his mask in time to avoid the gas attack, seeing him drowning through the
misty panes as under a green sea.
The two line stanza which begins the second sonnet-length half of the poem
shifts to a more reflective perspective and from present to past tense, as the narrator
speaks of dreams or rather, nightmares of the moment of his comrades death. The
final stanza of the poem repositions the implied reader as someone the narrator is
speaking to directly about his memories and nightmares of seeing and walking behind
the dead body. After describing in grotesque details the ways in which the body is
afflicted by the after-effects of gas (most likely chlorine gas, based on the symptoms),
the narrator of the poem then speaks directly to the listener. After describing the
innocent tongues of those plagued by gas attacks, he then attacks the tongues he views
as far less innocent those of the people who would tell with such high zest the old

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EMT615 Secondary English-Literacy: Curriculum Investigation

Simon Burnett

Assessment 1

lie of glory in war. The Latin quote in the last two lines was a common phrase among
supporters of the war in Britain at the time and were even inscribed upon the wall of the
chapel of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in the years leading up to the war.
Readers would thus have been very aware of the words and their implication, which
Owen is fiercely attacking in the poem.

The following critical questions are intended for a Year 9 English class, as part of
a broader unit on poetry. Ideally the timing of unit will provide opportunities for crosscurricular links with the Year 9 History unit on the First World War, and discussion
topics such as propaganda, voices of the war and the reliability of primary sources.
Questions will not all be asked at once, but delivered throughout the unit as students
become more competent and knowledgeable about poetic form and function. Dulce Et
Decorum Est will be one of a few poems students will be introduced to at the beginning
of the unit and returned to throughout, as students gain the ability to hopefully
understand it better.
1. Individually, go through the poem and underline each word you either do not
recognise or do not know the meaning of. What do those words mean, and why
might Owen have chosen them?
2. Break down the rhyme scheme used in the poem.
3. Can you identify any internal rhyme, alliteration or assonance, or onomatopoeia
used here?
4. What poetic form has Owen used here? Why might he have chosen it?
5. Who do you think the you in line 25 is?

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EMT615 Secondary English-Literacy: Curriculum Investigation

Simon Burnett

Assessment 1

6. Compare with similar work by an Australian poet from the same war, such as
Douglas Stewart, who also used the sonnet form. What differences can you see,
and what if anything does that tell you about the emerging Australian culture?
7. The last line in the poem is a Latin quote about death. What was meant by the
quote originally and how is Owen using it here? How does the difference
between the two add meaning to the poem?
8. Given what you know of the First World War, does Owen create a realistic
impression of it? Why or why not?
9. Pick three of the metaphors or pieces of imagery used in the poem, and describe
what they might be standing in for.
10. Does it change your interpretation of the poem if you know that Owen died just
months after writing it?

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