What is the personification, simile, metaphor, irony, and imagery of “Dulce et Decorum Est”?
linda-allen Teacher High School – 10th Grade I have pasted in the sources section below a link to the Guide to Literary Terms, in which each of these devices is defined. I’ll give you a couple examples of each and let you find the rest of them in the poem. Personification occurs when the author gives human characteristics to an inanimate object or animal. Look at how Owen describes the guns and see if you can find personification in them. Similes and metaphors are comparisons; simile uses the word “like” or “as,” and a metaphor does not. One simile in the poem is in the line “His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin.” An example of a metaphor is the expression “blood-shod.” The soldiers have lost their boots, and their feet are bloody instead. Irony occurs in the whole poem, especially with the title and the final lines, which can be translated as “It is good and fitting to die in the service of one’s country.” Imagery is mental pictures that the poem evokes for the reader. I won’t
