Wilfred Owen 1893-1918 Wilfred Owen is one of England’s most famous poets. He wrote about the despair and pity of war, exposing it for its treacherous reality. Wilfred Owen lived in a time when war was considered glorious. Severe restrictions and censorship of news from the front protected the glorious image of war. However, World War I (1914-1918) was a particularly gruesome war. It was trench warfare and soldiers lived in mud-filled trenches with bombs falling all around them. The stench of death laid heavily over the war and millions perished; both soldiers and civilians. Wilfred Owen enlisted in the army and became an officer in the Artists’ Regiment. During his tour of duty, Owen suffered shellshock and was invalided back to Craiglockhart Hospital in England. Here he spent time with Siegfried Sassoon who was another important war poet. Owen returned to the front and was killed one week before the ceasefire of November 11, 1918. Owen’s poetry is full of rich imagery that haunts the reader. His purpose is to evoke pity for the hapless soldier and expose the futility (senselessness) and horror of war. His most famous poetry, the work which we shall examine, was written during his time at Craiglockhart when he was able to reflect on his experiences- which followed the tradition of the Romantic Wordsworth who believed that poetry should come from ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’. For the most, Owen’s poetry is cold reflection; not written in the heat of battle.

Soldiers blinded by gas on the Western Front, 1918

How Owen is different to Brooke Part of the Georgian Poets and suggests something of how Brooke’s poetry may have transformed had he taken a full part in the war experience. Although his earlier work was part of the Neo-Romantic tradition, his experiences resulted in him reacting against this Experienced the front; these poems are his response to the war. Exposing the myth of glorious warfare; explores and demonstrates ‘the pity of war’ Protests the war; reflects his understanding of its futility and questions the motives of the men running the war. Influenced by Sassoon

Wilfred Owen DULCE ET DECORUM EST Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime.-- Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- 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.

Wilfred Owen ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH   What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?  Only the monstrous anger of the guns.  Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle  Can patter out their hasty orisons.  No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;  Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –  The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;  And bugles calling for them from sad shires.  What candles may be held to speed them all?  Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes  Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.  The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;  Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,  And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen THE SEND-OFF Down the close darkening lanes they sang their way To the siding-shed, And lined the train with faces grimly gay. Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray As men's are, dead. Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp Stood staring hard, Sorry to miss them from the upland camp. Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp Winked to the guard. So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went. They wer not ours: We never heard to which front these were sent. Nor there if they yet mock what women meant Who gave them flowers. Shall they return to beatings of great bells In wild train-loads? A few, a few, too few for drums and yells, May creep back, silent, to still village wells Up half-known roads.

Refererneces Jennifer Breen. (1974). Wilfred Owen: "Greater Love" and Late Romanticism. Retrieved, May, 2013 from http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/english_literature_in_transition/v017/17.3.breen.pdf Hibberd, D. (2013). Owen The Poet. Retrieved, May, 2013 from http://www.wilfredowen.org.uk/owen-the-poet Norgate, P. (1989). Wilfred Owen and the Soldier Poets. Retrieved May, 2013 from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/517098?uid=3738824&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102192593931