Wilfred Owen can be considered one of the best war poets of all time. His War Poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, uses a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathize with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. “Dulce et Decorum est” is a poem written through Owen's eyes, based on his own experiences and views of the horror of war. Owen presents a powerful argument against the complacency of those who believe that war is a glorious patriotic duty and that dying for one's country was noble and heroic. While recovering in an Edinburgh hospital, Owen met Siegfried Sassoon, an army captain and noted poet who wrote passionately about his wartime experiences. This marked a turning point in Owen's career as a poet. Sassoon was admired by Owen's poetry and persuaded him to "sweat his guts out writing poetry", while encouraging him to further develop his unique style. Owen was introduced to a new circle of intellectuals, including Robert Graves and others, who corroborated his stature as a poet. Initially, Sassoon's influence was extreme, and Owen began writing poetry that echoed his contemporary style. However, he soon found his own unique approach to writing about the war. As his style matured, so did his characteristic use of techniques such as pararhyma, alliteration, and assonance. Owen uses four main groups of images that run through the poem: 1 – Fatigue, sleep, dreams, a nightmare world: “Men walked asleep”, “Drunk with fatigue”, “In all my dreams”, “ If in some suffocating dreams,” Owen had nightmares from shell shock.2 –...... middle of paper ..... .ar is glorious. He criticizes the "high taste" and great enthusiasm that are used to convince men to go to war. He describes the soldiers as having "innocent tongues" and views the war as brutal and a waste of young lives. His choice of the word “children” is significant; for impressionable young men are almost lured to war by the promise of "desperate glory." In conclusion, Owen breaks with the pretty language prevalent in the poetry of his time to show his society the horrific images of a real, not romantically heroic, war. Finally, Owen juxtaposes the idea of ​​war as devastating and the idea of ​​war as heroic to illustrate the ultimate irony of the poem - "The Old Lie: Dulce Et Decorum Est, Pro patria Mori", which translates from the Latin with “it is sweet and fair”. to die for your country,” a concept that Owen steadfastly denied. Works Cited www.answers.com/topic/wilfred-owen -