Rediscovered this poem

[Dark Barde]

Dulce et Decorum Est


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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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.

Owen, Wilfred. 1917.

[Dark Barde]

Okay, I'm having a bit of an argument with a friend as to the meter of this piece. I say it's iambic pentameter, he says it isn't uniformly anything. I've scanned the first three lines like this:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks

This could be scanned as strict iambic pentameter
bent DOU/ble LIKE/ old BEG/gars UN/der SACKS

or like so:

BENT DOU/ble, like/ OLD BEG/gars UN/der SACKS
spondee/pyrrhic/spondee/iamb/iamb

Spondee + pyrrhic = double iamb, standard substitution, also spondee in third foot is standard substitution.


Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

KNOCK-KNEED/ coughing/ like HAGS,/ we CURSED/ through SLUDGE

spondee/pyrrhic/iamb/iamb/iamb

Same as above for spondee+pyrrhic.


Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

Till ON/ the HAUN/ting FLARES/ we TURNED/ our BACKS

iamb/iamb/iamb/iamb/iamb

And so on. Am I doing this right?

[Harry Rutherford]

I'd scan it -

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

xOxOxOxOxO

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

ooOxxOxOxO

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

xOxOxOxOxO

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

xOxOxOxOxO

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

xOxOOxxOxO

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

xOxOxOxOxO

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

OxxOxOxOxO

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

xOOxOxxOxO

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,

OOOxxOxoxOx

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

OxxOxOxOxO

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

xOxOxOxOxOx

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

xOxOxOxOxO

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

OxxOxOxOOO

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

xOxOxOxOxOx

etc

looks like IP (with occasional radical departures) to me.

[Dark Barde]

So you're demoting "bent" and "knock-kneed"? Why?

DB (curious, not indignant)

[Harry Rutherford]

With both of them, I have no particular problem with thinking of them either as an iamb or a spondee *shrug*. Which is why in one case I marked it 'oo' rather than either 'xO' or 'OO'.

Whatever you prefer to call them, neither of them is offensive to my ear, and the whole poem comes across as IP, more or less, with most of the lines being completely bog-standard xOxOxOxOxO(x).

Harry

[Harry Rutherford]

In a way, the 'flound'ring' is an indication that someone thought this was metrical - why else would you mark the elision?

[Dark Barde]

I absolutely agree, I was simply trying to find a way to argue my point with a bit of knowledge on my side, rather than saying, "I'm right and you're wrong," which would be unsatisfying to all parties involved. Thanks so much for pointing out all these things, now I can relay them to my friend as proof that this isn't unreadable.

Honestly, I think he's reading it like it's bloody Old English alliterative verse or something. That's purely accentual, isn't it? What a pain it must be to hear poetry like that.

[Howard Miller]

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
/ BENT DOUB/ le like/ OLD BEG/ gars UN/ der SACKS/
or
/ BENT DOUB/ le LIKE/ old BEG/ gars UN/ der SACKS/

In either case, you have strict IP with standard substitutions.
This line, though, is a good example of why Greek feet don't work well in analyzing English metrical verse. Probably a more accurate reading which takes modulated stress into account would be (where 2 = weak stress, 3 = mid-range stress, and 4 = strong stress):
/ BENT (4) DOUB (4)/ le LIKE (2)/ OLD (3) BEG (4)/ gars UND (2/3)/ der SACKS (4)/

Steele, in his text on meter, makes the point that the progressively rising pattern of / le LIKE (2)/ OLD (3) BEG (4)/ is a very common one in metrical verse.

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
/ KNOCK KNEED/ # COUGH ing/ like HAGS/ we CURSED/ through SLUDGE/
where # equals a strong caesura. When you have a strong caesura within a 3-syllable span, the normal demotion of the second syllable generally does not take place.
Again, this line fits within the standard parameters for acceptable substitution.

Again, in terms of modulated stress:

/ KNOCK (4) KNEED (4)/ # COUGH (4) ing/ like HAGS (4)/ WE (2/3) CURSED (4)/ through SLUDGE (4)/

Owen has deliberately used stress-heavy substitutions in these lines. Stressed syllables often are held a bit longer in speech than unstressed syllables (not always--depends in part on the specific sounds whch make them up, of course). By clustering stressed syllables in these two lines, Owen achieves exactly the effect Pope talked about in "The sound must seem an echo to the sense" because Owen is describing the slow, heavy, painful movements of the soldiers and the rhythm here, because of all the clustered stresses, is very slow and heavy, thereby accurately reflecting the movements of the soldiers. This is poetry writing at its best.

For over 30 years, I've used this poem to introduce students to poetry because it's so totally unlike their preconceptions of what "that poetry stuff" is like.

Howard

[Harry Rutherford]

Honestly, I think he's reading it like it's bloody Old English alliterative verse or something. That's purely accentual, isn't it? What a pain it must be to hear poetry like that.


Blasphemy!

Harry
who wrote his MA thesis on Anglo-Saxon poetry

[Dark Barde]

Originally posted by Harry Rutherford
Blasphemy!

Harry
who wrote his MA thesis on Anglo-Saxon poetry

Hey, I only meant that it must be unpleasant to "hear" modern poetry through the conventions of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. Comprende?

Don't get me wrong, I adore Beowulf and the like, it's very cool to hear them read aloud by someone who can get the timing and accent (by which I mean Sean Connery-esque delivery) correct. Now if I can only learn enough Greek to read some Homeric poetry aloud myself...

[Dubliner]

This is all very technically informative, but regarding the content of the poem, I'd like to recommend, for those who are able to get there, the temporary exhibition at the Imperial War Museum London until 27 April:- 'Anthem For Doomed Youth - Twelve Soldier Poets Of The First World War. It's a highly moving audio/visual display where many of the personal artefacts of the poets, photographs, fragments of poetry scribbled in tattered notebooks etc. remind us of the humanity of Owen, Sassoon and some of the other less well-known war poets.

Regards, Bob