Close Study of Texts - Wilfred Owen Essays

Wilfred Owen, born in 1893, was an aspiring poet and enlisted in the British army in 1915. It was only when he set foot in the trenches he realised the disguised horrors of war underneath the superficial layer of glory. The damaging encounters of war was a motivating factor for him to propagate the truths. In 1917, Owen was admitted to Craiglockhart Military hospital, diagnosed with shell shock. It was his time there which inspired him to write his poem, ‘Mental Cases’, which captures the every grim detail of war.

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.

Wilfred Owen is able to exaggerate how soldiers die by embodying the deaths of each man like a cattle going off to the slaughterhouse. Owen attempts to say that soldiers who die in war are not honoured for their sacrifice during battle. He implies that the soldiers' deaths have no value until their deceased bodies are taken home to their loved ones to

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

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.

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

Throughout Wilfred Owen’s collection of poems, he unmasks the harsh tragedy of war through the events he experienced. His poems indulge and grasp readers to feel the pain of his words and develop some idea on the tragedy during the war. Tragedy was a common feature during the war, as innocent boys and men had their lives taken away from them in a gunshot. The sad truth of the war that most of the people who experienced and lived during the tragic time, still bare the horrifying images that still live with them now. Owen’s poems give the reader insight to this pain, and help unmask the tragedy of war.

know the truth. I am going to explore what I find to be three of his

In the First World War people wanted the young men to go to war, but

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.

‘Anthem for doomed youth’ portrays the sad and tragic aspects of loss by generalizing it to focus on young men losing their lives on the battlefield to be deprived of their funeral rights. Owen expresses the horrors of war and openly criticizes the loss of life; the loss of young and promising men sent to their inevitable death. Owen effectively portrays the suffering of war to draw the responder’s attention to the victims who are only ‘boys’. Through the use of rhetorical questioning in conjunction with a simile Owen makes comparisons between the cattle and the solider, this is showcased through the line “what passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” In which the disaster of sending young men to die is emphasized through the solemn lament

For thousands of years mankind has been obsessed with the subject of war, from the clash of swords to the bitter thunder of artillery mankind has brought upon itself an immense amount of suffering. Good evening teachers and students I am here today with the aim of convincing you on why Wilfred Owens poetry must not be ignored but instead explored to find the deeper meaning of his poems. The poetry of Wilfred Owen was different to that of other war poets of his time as it revealed the horrors and agony of the so-called Great War which were concealed by the Church and British Authorities for the purpose of deceiving the youth. The idea of romanticising war goes strongly against Wilfred Owens moral purpose, thus his Poetry is didactic and condemnatory. Throughout his short life he had first hand experience with the scourge of war. From this he aimed to debunk those romanticised notions of the glorification of war that were present at the time by challenging poets such as John Keats who glorified war. Owen effectively conveys the truth of war through his use of techniques such as imagery, ambiguity and many others in his poems of "Dulce Et Decorum EST" and Anthem For doomed youth.