Wilfred_Owen_War_Poems

Wilfred Owen served and died in the First World War, at the battle of the Somme, one of the most horrific battles in recorded history, men were sent over the top slaughtered in their hundreds. During his time on the frontline Owen took sanctuary in writing poetry, it became a way for him to express what he was feeling in response to the chaotic horror that was occurring around him. The central concerns explored in Owen’s poetry are the realities of war, the physical and emotional impact on the soldiers and their loved one’s. Owen is quoted saying in his unpublished volume of poems: “This book is not about heroes..Nor is it about..glory, honour, might, majesty, domination or power.. My subject is war, and the pity of war”. Owen’s poetry serves as a device to expose the lies behind government propaganda fed to young men to entice them into war and explores the way in which war dehumanises and brutalises soldiers. Owen’s ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ both touch on the central concerns of realities of war, the physical and emotional impact on the soldiers and their loved one’s and through close analysis of the texts I will explain how these ideas are developed. ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ explores the violent environment of war itself, the physical impact on soldiers and the emotional impact on the grieving soldiers loved one’s on the home front and the lack of a proper burial the young men receive. The use of ‘doomed youth’ in the title reinforces generational loss and evokes pity and empathy. The first stanza explores the violent environment of war and how it robed the youth of the proper burial they deserve this idea developed using the rhetorical question ‘what candles may be held to speed them all'” The brief structure of the first stanza helps focus our attention on the fact the young victims were only boys. The second stanza focuses on the grieving loved one’s the soldiers have left behind, with their youth and vulnerability emphasised by the assonance in ‘the pallor of girls brows shall be their pall’, the wives and girlfriends left behind to mourn their death with soft tears and tender memories. The central concerns in the poem being developed by the use of descriptive vocabulary, emotive adjectives and sensory emphasis on the battlefield, the place of horror and destruction. The tonal shift between the anger of the first stanzas octet to the sombre, bleak tone of the second stanzas sestet creates emphasis on the differences of home and the battlefield. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is Owen’s second poem I will be discussing. The title ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ comes from a Latin saying that was often quoted at the beginning of world war one. The title when juxtaposed with the poem’s central concerns of the false way in which the government portrays war and the mental and physical effects the war leaves on soldiers creates bitter sarcasm. The irony used in ‘the old lie; dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ reinforces and develops Owen’s concerns towards the government misrepresenting war, was is everything but sweet and honourable. The poem is written in three main stages, before the gas attack, during and after the attack, with all four stanzas irregular in length. The couplet in the third stanza stands out and describes the nightmarish scene in which haunts the surviving soldiers as they sleep, developing the central concerns of the mental effects war has the men. The physical effects on the soldiers is developed through similes such as ‘bent double, like old beggars under sacks’ and ‘coughing like hags’, depicting the young men as prematurely aged, physically ruined and numb with exhaustion. Owen’s final concern of the government wrongly portraying war is developed proven wrong through Owen’s use of onomatopoeia and visual imagery such as ‘gargling’, ‘chocking’ and ‘froth corrupted lungs’, these strong words startle the reader, appealing to their senses, shocking them to realise the realities of war, the horrible, horrific reality, far from what the government portrays it as. The realities of war, the physical and emotional effect on soldiers and the pity of war all explored and developed. Owen successfully develops his central concerns of the realities of war, the physical and emotional effect on soldiers and the pity of war all explored and developed using complex and highly effective poetic devices such as similes and onomatopoeia to make the reader think and feel and question war and the reality of war as opposed to what we are taught about war by the government, often in a way that may seem to be an attack yet a simple observation of the truth, making it so persuasive.