ABSTRACT
Philosophers and statesmen have argued from time immemorial that a lie is sometimes a necessity when made in the public interest, but the view of war as a noble mission when coupled to sporting adolescent energy has held an appeal bested by few other fictions. Roundly endorsed in numerous quarters in Great Britain, yet derided in others as the "Old Lie," this accounting of war provided an expedient point of departure for a satirical antiwar opera composed by the self-taught Havergal Brian, an idiosyncratic composer and devotee of Elgar. Unlike those who condemned the Old Lie, Rupert Brooke rhapsodized in his poem "Peace" that he had reached adulthood in the nick of time: "Now God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, / And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping." Among the poets, none exposed the Old Lie with more directness than Wilfred Owen in his celebrated "Dulce et decorum est.".
