Wilfred Owen Uses Language And Poetic Devices

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

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Wilfred Owen’s poetry is shaped by an intense focus on extraordinary human experiences. In at least 2 poems set for study, explore Owen’s portrayal of suffering and pity.

    Through vivid imagery and compelling metaphors "Dulce et Decorum Est" gives the reader the exact feeling the author wanted. The poem is an anti-war poem by Wilfred Owen and makes great use of these devices. This poem is very effective because of its excellent manipulation of the mechanical and emotional parts of poetry. Owen's use of exact diction and vivid figurative language emphasizes his point, showing that war is terrible and devastating. Furthermore, the utilization of extremely graphic imagery adds even more to his argument. Through the effective use of all three of these tools, this poem conveys a strong meaning and persuasive argument.

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’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.

How does Wilfred Owen use language and poetic devices to create impact on the reader?

Owen also uses language of terror and powerlessness for the speaker as the poem progresses. Describing the soldier the speaker has seen fail to attach his gas mask, he says, “I saw him drowning” (14). He dreams of this encounter repeatedly, “[in] all my dreams, before my helpless sight/ He plunges at me” (15-16). In his dreams, he is not only powerless to aid this man, but

What is Wilfred Owen’s attitude towards Worlds War 1 and how is this shown through his poetry?

How does Owen’s portrayal of the relationship between youth and war move us to a deeper understanding of suffering?

army when he was 22 years old. He was injured in a shell explosion in

“Gently its touch woke him once” the sun is personified as a human and gently touches the man, waking him from sleep however the warmth and the “kindness” of the sun is incompetent to fully wake the deceased, hence, the act of reviving their comrade is futile because of war’s inevitable destructiveness. The speaker starts to question, “At home, whispering of fields half-sown. Always it woke him, even in France”. A nostalgic reference to ‘Home’ with connotations of safety and peace, the sun at home always woke him up but this time was different. Owen depicts the unfortunate young soldier as “fields half-sown” implying that he is too young to die. Owen exhibit the savagery of war depriving the lives of million young ones, leaving them futile and damaged.

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.

There are several image groups used in this poem, two of which I will be reviewing. The first image group is “Sleep or Dreams”. Owen often refers to many subconscious states like the afore mentioned one, the reason why he uses these references so frequently is that war is made apparent to the reader as being a subconscious state as the realities often seem to be too hard to except, an example which backs up my opinion is: “Men marched asleep”. The poet often refers to dreams. I believe part of the reason for this is that by dreaming you are escaping from the physical reality and surroundings and due to the horror and constant threat of death the soldiers would constantly be dreaming of home and their loved ones. However,

In both poems Owen shows us the physical effect of war, Wilfred starts the poems showcasing unendurable stress the men were going through. Appalling pictures are created and expressed through similes and metaphors. Owen’s lexical choices link to the semantic field of the archaic which conveys the atavistic effects of war. The men are compared to old beggars, hags, the once young men have been deprived of their youth and turned into old women, the loss of masculinity express the how exhausting and ruthless war was. The men were barely awake from lack of sleep, they “marched in sleep” their once smart uniforms resembling “sacks”. He also expresses how