<P> In 1913, the first line, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, was inscribed on the wall of the chapel of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst . In the final stanza of his poem, Owen refers to this as "The old Lie". </P> <P> The style of "Dulce et Decorum est" is similar to the French ballade poetic form . By referencing this formal poetic form and then breaking the conventions of pattern and rhyming, Owen accentuates the disruptive and chaotic events being told . Each of the stanzas has a traditional rhyming scheme, they use two quatrains of rhymed iambic pentameter with several spondaic substitutions . which give the poem a reading pace, that of which is closest to casual talking speed, clarity and volume . </P> <P> The poem is in two parts, each of 14 lines . The first part of the poem (the first 8 line and the second 6 line stanzas) is written in the present as the action happens and everyone is reacting to the events around them . In second part (the third 2 line and the last 12 line stanzas), Owen writes as though at a distance from the horror: he refers to what is happening twice as if in a "dream", as though standing back watching the events or even recalling them . Another interpretation is to read the lines literally . "In all my dreams" surely means this sufferer of shell shock is haunted by his friend drowning in his own blood and cannot sleep without revisiting the horror nightly . The second part looks back to draw a lesson from what happened at the start . The two 14 line parts of the poem again echoes a formal poetic style, the sonnet, and again it is a broken and unsettling version of this form . </P> <P> The second half of this poem, has the narrator reminded by seeing the soldier who didn't get his helmet on fast enough to offer some dark and harsh advice to readers about how quick and impartial thinking can get you thinking irrationally and can and will ultimately get you killed . It includes a broken sonnet, this sonnet form along with the irregularity give the feeling of other worldliness and a sense of being foreign when read . Studying the two parts of the poem also reveals a change in the use of language from visual impressions outside the body, to sounds produced by the body - or a movement from the visual to the visceral . In the opening lines, the scene is set with visual phrases like' haunting flares' but after the gas attack, Owen uses sounds produced by the victim -' guttering',' choking',' gargling' . In this way, Owen mirrors the terrible nature of phosgene, which corrodes the body from inside . </P>

Who was dulce et decorum est written for