Comparative Analysis Prompt for I Declare War Part 2: Read “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen and “The
Gettysburg Address” by Abraham Lincoln carefully. Then, in a well-developed essay, analyze and contrast how the
distinct style of each writer reveals their view of war. Support your analysis with specific references to the text.
Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln
Four score and seven years ago our fathers
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through
sludge,
brought forth on this continent, a new nation,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
proposition that all men are created equal.
conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
on a great battle-field of that war. We have come
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final
resting place for those who here gave their lives
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling,
that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
and proper that we should do this.
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
struggled here, have consecrated it, far above
our poor power to add or detract. The world will
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
little note, nor long remember what we say here,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
but it can never forget what they did here. It is
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
the unfinished work which they who fought here
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
us to be here dedicated to the great task
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
remaining before us -- that from these honored
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
dead we take increased devotion to that cause
for which they gave the last full measure of
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
dead shall not have died in vain -- that this
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
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.
freedom -- and that government of the people,
by the people, for the people, shall not perish
from the earth.