What Makes Wilfred Owen a Great War Poet?
… was to expose the truth about war. Owen illustrates his poetry with such vivid descriptions and realism, particularly in Dulce et Decorum est, so as to paint a realistic image of World War I in the reader’s mind, especially in the fourth and final verse, where Owen vividly describes the horrific image of a soldier dead from gas, and he brings the reader right up close to the face of the dead soldier. By doing this, he makes it very personal for the reader. The face of a human is what shows their emotions, and what shows identity. In the poem The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson, which describes the charge of British cavalry against Russian soldiers, the whole six hundred British were slaughtered, yet not once does Tennyson pick out one soldier, or individualises this. This is what Owen does in “Dulce et Decorum est”: he …
