How is irony shown in Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce et Decorum Est"?I understand what irony is, but I can't find what is so ironic about this title. I...

Irony is present in many of the literary works that came
out of the first World War, and that's probably not too surprising, given the stark
contrast between what people were told about the war, and how they actually experienced
it. Irony is a device that depends on contrast. We call it dramatic irony, for example,
when the audience knows something that one of the characters doesn't. Then when that
character speaks or acts in ignorance, the audience sees the situation as ironic. Or, a
character may engage in verbal irony by saying one thing, while meaning something quite
different.

Wilfred Owen's poem is ironic in more than one
sense. As a poetic statement made at a specific moment in history, it speaks what so
many people felt as the war dragged on: that they had been misled, lied to, that the war
was being described in one way, but in reality it was something very different indeed.
But irony is also crucial to the way "Dulce et Decorum Est" is written. Everything in
the poem builds toward the last two lines. And those lines are different than anything
else in the poem: they're in Latin, obviously. And for readers who know what they mean,
and even know that they were written by Horace, one of the great classical authors, they
have an aura of tradition, of authority. Owen's purpose, of course, is to undercut that
authority, to make the lines sound hollow, ironic. He does that very explicitly by
calling the lines a lie. But that explicit statement that we should read the Latin line
ironically only reinforces what he has already accomplished. The elevated tone of the
last lines, their "decorum," as language, contrasts violently with the language of the
rest of the poem. Owen's diction is anything but elevated, drawing instead on words like
ugly, guttering, writhing, gargling, obscene cancer, froth-corrupted lungs, bitter as
the cud of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues. After listening to such language,
the dignified Latin can hardly sound anything other than shockingly ironic and
dishonest. In addition to his overarching situational irony, Owen has used verbal irony
to powerful effect.