Wilfred (Edward Salter) Owen March 18, November 4, 1918

Personal Life Born March 18, 1893, in Oswestry, Shropshire, England Mixed English and Welsh Ancestry failed to win a scholarship to the university Became a pupil and lay assistant to the Vicar of Dunsden, Oxfordshire

Once he escaped the influence of his devout Calvinist mother, he became very critical of the role of the church in society This is reflected in his earliest poetry, as is his awareness of the suffering of the poor

left his position with the Vicar and traveled to France where he studied and taught English World War I was already in progress when he left France in September, 1915, to return to England He enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles with the British Army

Wilfred Owen - Soldier War Time: His battalion finally saw battle in France in from 1916 to 1918, and suffered higher "casualties" rates than those of any other battalion in the REF— about 60%.

Commissioned as a lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment Late in 1916 he was posted to the Western Front where he participated in the Battle of the Somme Suffered shell-shock after several months at the front and was declared “unfit to command troops”

May, 1917, he was removed from action because of his shell-shock In June he was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh While a patient at Craiglockhart, he met fellow patient, poet, and mentor Siegfried Sassoon

Sassoon encouraged Owen to use his personal experiences in battle as subjects for his poetry Most of Owen’s poetry was written after his meeting with Sassoon and in the fifteen months prior to his death

Fall, 1918 Upon his discharge from the hospital, Owen rejoined his regiment in Scarborough In early September of 1918, he returned to the front line Shortly after his return to the front, he was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry

Wilfred Owen was killed in action at the Sambre Canal in northeast France on November 4, one week before the Armistice The telegram from the War Office announcing his death was delivered to his mother's home as her town's church bells were ringing in celebration of the Armistice He is buried at Ors, France

Professional Life At the time of his death only a handful of his poems had been published His first poems are regarded as conventional, patriotic songs of valor What critics consider his mature period began with his encounter with Siegfried Sassoon (summer, 1917)

Adapted his poetic techniques to non- traditional war subjects New works are based solely on his war experiences Before his death he began preparing a collection of his poetry for publication

Preface to his collection “This book is not about heroes. My subject is War, and the pity of War. I am not concerned with Poetry. The Poetry is in the Pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is to warn.”

Owen saw himself as the voice of the infantrymen who were unable to effectively articulate their own experiences and emotions His verses represent a unique, emotional response to war Owen had a great influence on the poets of the next generation -- W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, etc.

Technique Use of alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance, half-rhyme, and Para rhyme Para rhyme -- rhyming of two words with identical or similar consonants but differing stressed vowels (hall / Hell), the second of which is usually lower in pitch, this produces effects of dissonance, failure, and unfulfillment that subtly reinforce his themes

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.