How Did Wilfred Owen Influence His Poetry

Likewise, Owen creates an unsettling tone by using sensory imagery to position the reader to experience the degrading effect war has on soldiers. In Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum est”,

World War I was a tragic event that left many people broken and bewildered. Wilfred Owen was a British poet who experienced and fought in World War I. Wilfred Owen wrote poetry to express his strong emotions toward war and throughout his poetry he showed the horrible things that can come of war. He depicted war in his poems to be a pity and a useless action that never solves problems for anyone. In Wilfred Owen’s poems he depicted war to be a nightmare that no one should withstand. Wilfred Owen’s experience in war changed him and his perspective on war; it made him more fearful because he witnessed men and women killing for their country’s idiotic objectives. Wilfred Owen was an influential British poet that displayed hate and resentment toward

Wilfred Owen wrote about the futility, the suffering and the pity of war from his personal experience on the battlefields. He was horrified with the devastating futile waste of life, the “inhumanity of man” and the depth of its catastrophic effects on young men. In his poems ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Futility’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, he writes with intense focus on war as an extraordinary human experience. The poems also intentionally document other experiences: the horror of war in ‘Futility’; emotional, physical and even spiritual loss in ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, and a cruel and distorted death from mustard gas in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. As a

Wilfred Owen seizes poetry as a powerful tool to protest against the dominant nationalistic values and shifts the public’s ideals and beliefs by showing them the concealed truth and exploitation of the soldiers. His livid attitude towards nationalism and the effects of war are shown in ,”Dulce et Decorum est.” While “Anthem for Doomed Youth” demonstrates his caring perspective on human life, individualism. Both aiming to reveal the truth of war.

As an anti-war poet, Wilfred Owen uses his literary skills to express his perspective on human conflict and the wastage involved with war, the horrors of war, and its negative effects and outcomes. As a young man involved in the war himself, Owen obtained personal objectivity of the dehumanisation of young people during the war, as well as the false glorification that the world has been influenced to deliver to them. These very ideas can be seen in poems such as 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' and 'Dulce ET Decorum EST Pro Patria Mori'. Owen uses a variety of literary techniques to convey his ideas.

War is deadly, the marks left for the time spent there will stay with you forever; either in the sense of mortality seen or mental and physical attributes given. The experience kills a little part of you each time, even if it is for a patriotic cause, which reflects the thoughts of the nation. Wilfred Owen, which at the time was, set in the mentality that he should fight for his country because of honor and the glory it would bring. Therefore, we can infer, he felt regret and sorrow for the missed opportunities compared to if he had known the truth about the war. Owen, a war hero and poet, put forth his own experiences in war, of which he didn’t have much understanding of, in hopes to allow others to not make that same mistake. Furthermore,

“Dulce et Decorum Est” Owen uses a lot of powerful imagery in this poem. He conveys his thoughts through the use of descriptive language techniques such as: metaphors, alliteration and similes. Metaphors are used to. Alliteration makes the reader remember certain phrases, “Knock kneed”, “men marched” and “GAS! GAS!” these are all examples of alliteration and Owen is trying to hammer in the point. Imagine

An estimated 10 million soldiers died in World War One, many of whom would have gone on to do great things. One soldier, however, managed to secure a legacy for himself that had nothing to do with fighting but everything to do with the war. Wilfred Owen is one of the most recognized war poets from the First World War, and his poems are some of the most truthful from that time as well. He is credited with portraying the war as what it really was rather than glorifying it like Tennyson or other war poets (“Dulce et Decorum Est” 108). Owen spent his entire short life loving poetry and expanding his own style of writing.

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.

When his poetry is read, it feels as though you’re with him on the field, watching as your friends fight for their lives. Stuck in a war that was lead predominately in trenches, Owen began to find it difficult to validate the constant misery and death he experienced. Continually considering whether the war had been carried on beyond point of reason, he began to express himself through poetry that highlighted the irony of the

Wilfred Owen wrote a powerful anti-poem Disabled” about a young soldier wanting to join the war in 1917; under the circumstance of World War 1 which was written while he was a patient at a War Hospital in Scotland, after being diagnosed with ‘neurasthenia’ (‘shell-shock’). Owen wrote this poem to show pro-war poets what it was actually like to experience the battle, and to contrast with poems such as ‘Who’s for the Game?’ by Jessie Pope which portrayed war as being a ‘good game’. Owen was so anti-war because he had

The metaphors “the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” and “vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues” have the same effect as the similes through their unpleasant words; they are there to shock you, and they are so haunting that they amplify the effect of the satirical ending “Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori.”, which means ‘it is sweet and fitting to die for your country’. Owen presents society negatively through this poem because in the poem we see that adults are lying to young men in order to get them to go to war, for example by using the saying “Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori”. By showing us how gruesome the war is, and then by explaining to us that the adults are telling children that it is sweet and fitting to die for your country, Owen is trying to show how society is almost tricking teenagers into wanting to go fight in the war. This obviously presents a negative view on society, but it serves Owen’s purpose of wanting to show the pity of war.

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.

The poems for which Owen is remembered for were written in a period between August 1917 and September 1918. Owen self-appointed himself with the task of speaking out for the men in his care. He did this by showing the pettiness of war, which Owen also expressed his distaste for the war in his letters home. Owen’s somber practically, energy and umbrage, his humanity are blatant in many of his well-known poems. As well as his great technical skills in his phrasings or line set ups

Thornhill, Rodger. "World War I and Wilfred Owen's Poetry." Yahoo! Contributor Network. Yahoo Voices, 30 July 2009. Web. 04 May 2013.