Wilfred Owen

The author of “Anthem for Doomed Youth” leads his reader through his personal struggle and frustration of war. Owen has an abrasive approach when describing the death all around him and clearly expresses his anger with the “hasty orisons” for the dead. He speaks directly of battlefront in the first octet and then includes the home front in the second half of his sonnet. Owen’s purpose is not a commemoration of fallen soldiers. Rather, he divulges the disgust and disappointment of war. Like McCrae, Wilfred Owen paints a picture of the multitude of deaths. Back at the home front, “…each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.” We can construe that the author is not simply talking about preparing for bed in the evening, but rather lowering the blinds in a room where yet another dead soldier lies, as an indication to the community and out of respect for the soldier. There is a lack of “passing-bells for these who die as cattle….no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs.” Owen writes as though he feels that there is indifference among the death of his fellow soldiers.

Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth and Bruce Dawe’s Homecoming are thematically connected poems which explore the futility of war and the treatment of deceased combatants. Both Owen and Dawe served in the military and were controversial condemners in all that they penned on World War One and the Vietnam War respectively. Despite this, these texts do not explicitly state these views, but rather evoke the sympathy of the audience utilising subtle poetic techniques including contrast, flesh imagery and death imagery.

One is to think of war as one of the most honorable and noble services that a man can attend to for his country, it is seen as one of the most heroic ways to die for the best cause. The idea of this is stripped down and made a complete mockery of throughout both of Wilfred Owen’s poems “Dulce Et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. Through his use of quickly shifting tones, horrific descriptive and emotive language and paradoxical metaphors, Owen contradicts the use of war and amount of glamour given towards the idea of it.

Owen’s poem has the clear intention of showing the true nature of war to the reader, which is mainly achieved by contrasting reality against the ways in which war is so

“In his poetry, Wilfred Owen depicts the horror and futility of war and the impact war has on individuals.”

Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poem made of four stanzas in an a, b, a, b rhyme scheme. There is hardly any rhythm to the entire poem, although Owen makes it sound like it is in iambic pentameter in some lines. Every stanza has a different amount of lines, ranging from two to twelve. To convey the poem’s purpose, Owen uses an unconventional poem style and horrid, graphic images of the frontlines to convey the unbearable circumstances that many young soldiers went through in World War I. Not only did these men have to partake in such painful duties, but these duties contrasted with the view of the war made by the populace of the mainland country. Many of these people are pro-war and would never see the battlefield themselves. Owen’s use of word choice, imagery, metaphors, exaggeration, and the contrast between the young, war-deteriorated soldiers and populace’s favorable view of war creates Owen’s own unfavorable view of the war to readers.

what the nature of war and creating a sense of 'them' and 'us' this is

Wilfred Owen's war poems central features include the wastage involved with war, horrors of war and the physical effects of war. These features are seen in the poems "Dulce Et Decorum Est" and "Anthem for Doomed Youth" here Owen engages with the reader appealing to the readers empathy that is felt towards the soldier. These poems interact to explore the experiences of the soldiers on the battlefields including the realities of using gas as a weapon in war and help to highlight the incorrect glorification of war. This continuous interaction invites the reader to connect with the poems to develop a more thorough

In conclusion, “Dulce et Decorum” by Wilfred Owen is a poem written with the clear purpose of destroying the heroic tradition by telling the truth about war. It doesn’t sugar coats the ugly reality of war, but describes in vivid disturbing details. Even if the poet died during the battles of the Great War, we can be very grateful that some of his works survived to tell the tale as it is. Not noble, regal nor godly, but

Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively conveys his perspectives on human conflict through his experiences during The Great War. Poems such as ‘Futility’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ portray these perceptions through the use of poetic techniques, emphasising such conflicts involving himself, other people and nature. These themes are examined in extreme detail, attempting to shape meaning in relation to Owen’s first-hand encounters whilst fighting on the battlefield.

Poetry is a form of writing that can be used to convey very strong emotions and ideas to the reader, this can be seen in the works of famous poet Wilfred Owen, Owen is the most well-known English trench warfare poet who fought in World War I. His military career began in 1915, when he enlisted himself in the Artists Rifle group and soon became a second lieutenant, like many young men he was ready to fight and die for his country. In 1917 he was wounded in battle and was diagnosed with shell shock; the year he spent in the hospital is when he wrote most of his poetry. His injury influenced many of his poems such as ‘’Conscious’’. Some of his most famous works include ‘’Dulce et Decorum Est’’, ‘’Insensibility’’, ‘’Anthem for Doomed Youth’’, ‘’Futility’’, and ‘’Strange Meeting’’. Owen was shot and died in battle on November 4, 1918; he was only 25 years old. In his poetry, Owen claims that war is a waste of human life and that it is horrible and cruel.

Wilfred Owen can be considered as one of the finest war poets of all times. His war poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, use a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathise with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. The sonnet form, para-rhymes, ironic titles, voice, and various imagery used by Owen grasp the prominent central idea of the complete futility of war as well as explore underlying themes such as the massive waste of young lives, the horrors of war, the hopelessness of war and the loss of religion. These can be seen in the three poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and

Wilfred Owen served on the front lines during the World War I and expressed his disdain for the war through his poetry that he wrote in the hospital after being wounded whereas Rupert Brooke also served during the war, but never saw active combat which explains why in contrast to Owen, Brooke’s poems are idealistic, patriotic, and exalt the war. Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth begins with the jarring image of men dying in battle, “who die as cattle.” This analogy shows the glorification and the horror of the war as it conveys Owen’s contempt for the indignity of war by insinuating that the men have no more significance than cattle being slaughtered. The sounds of the “monstrous anger of the guns” are the soldiers’ only “passing-bells” and “the stuttering rifles rapid rattle” are their only prayers-their only choir is the “shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells.” By using words such as “monstrous,” “shrill,” and “demented,” Owen emphasizes the horrors of the war and he suggests that the weapons are presiding over the deaths and shows the glorification and the horror of the war.

Wilfred Owen reflects a dislike of how war is portrayed in his poems “Dulce et Decorum” and “Disabled”. Owen enlisted to fight in World War I in 1915 after teaching English for two years in Bordeaux. It was during his enlistment that he was sent to the front lines of the war in France. Two years later Owen was sent to the Craiglockhart War Hospital to be treated for shell shock until he could return to combat. Then, in 1918 five of his poems were published and he was killed in combat one week before the war end. His poems would go on to portray the life of soldiers in World War I and mock the ones who claimed it was honorable to fight in the war while they were safe at home ( Mays). “Disabled”, one of these poems, told the story of a young solider that had been tricked into thinking that joining the military was the most honorable and good thing to do and later returned regretful and broken (Owen). “Dulce et Decorum” was another one of these famous poems. It described the horrors that soldiers went through during gas attacks and “protested against the mentality of that perpetuates war” (Parfitt).

War is not heroic. War is sickness, struggle, and death. This is the message that poet and World War I soldier Wilfred Owen wanted to instill in his people back home. Those back home talked of glory and national pride and rooted for their soldiers, however, they were unaware of the horrors these soldiers witnessed and experienced. The soldiers and their people back home were not only separated by distance but by mental barriers, which Owen showcases in his poetry. Owen’s use of personification in “Anthem for Doomed Youth” degrades the soldiers to objects to show how the war dehumanized them to intentionally create a disconnect between the audience and the soldiers.