Wilfred Owen War Poet
‘How do any two or three poems deal with the themes of mourning, loss, or memory?’ Wilfred Owen: Anthem for Doomed Youth and Futility.
The first Word War which took place mostly in Europe from 1914 to 1918 left millions dead and shaped the modern world. After World War I poets started to write about their experiences. Most of these poets had been soldiers who wrote the poetry to reflect the horror of their experiences in an immediate and realistic way. Trench warfare in particular and the chaos of war in general were the source of the poems indignation and disgust. The high death rate and the horrific conditions suffered by those fighting in the trenches meant that the concept of ‘heroic sacrifice’ in service to one’s country became meaningless. Patriotic poetry was therefore replaced with poems that were to symbolize the futility of war, protesting against the waste of life and forcing its readers to engage emotionally with reality. Within this essay I will look at the effects the war had on soldiers who fought in the trenches and how they dealt with the unimaginable numbers of deaths they encountered daily. I will explore the way they were able to cope with the grief and loss and how attitudes towards death and mourning changed as a result of the war. Throughout this piece I will focus on one particular soldier, Wilfred Owen, and the poetry he wrote about the loss of lives and the effect that his writing had on the mourning and memories of those left behind.
In writings on World War 1, the enactment of grief is often overshadowed by the drama of battle, as in the wider conflict where loss is born; grief leaves no one unaffected by its devastation. Writing, whether in the form of poetry or letters, allowed the soldiers to share their anguish as a way of coming to terms with their harrowing loss and sense of guilt as survivors.
Before the war there was a system of both public and private grieving and mourning. Mourners wore black and the period of
The first Word War which took place mostly in Europe from 1914 to 1918 left millions dead and shaped the modern world. After World War I poets started to write about their experiences. Most of these poets had been soldiers who wrote the poetry to reflect the horror of their experiences in an immediate and realistic way. Trench warfare in particular and the chaos of war in general were the source of the poems indignation and disgust. The high death rate and the horrific conditions suffered by those fighting in the trenches meant that the concept of ‘heroic sacrifice’ in service to one’s country became meaningless. Patriotic poetry was therefore replaced with poems that were to symbolize the futility of war, protesting against the waste of life and forcing its readers to engage emotionally with reality. Within this essay I will look at the effects the war had on soldiers who fought in the trenches and how they dealt with the unimaginable numbers of deaths they encountered daily. I will explore the way they were able to cope with the grief and loss and how attitudes towards death and mourning changed as a result of the war. Throughout this piece I will focus on one particular soldier, Wilfred Owen, and the poetry he wrote about the loss of lives and the effect that his writing had on the mourning and memories of those left behind.
In writings on World War 1, the enactment of grief is often overshadowed by the drama of battle, as in the wider conflict where loss is born; grief leaves no one unaffected by its devastation. Writing, whether in the form of poetry or letters, allowed the soldiers to share their anguish as a way of coming to terms with their harrowing loss and sense of guilt as survivors.
Before the war there was a system of both public and private grieving and mourning. Mourners wore black and the period of
Bibliography: Cox,C.B. and A.E. Dyson. (1979) Modern Poetry - Studies in Practical Criticism. Southhampton: The Camelot Press Ltd. Gillam, C.W. (1965) Modern Poems Understood. London: George G Harrop & Co Ltd. Mahmud, M. R. (2008) ‘The impact of First World War on Poetry of Wilfred Owen’ The Review of English Studies 40 (160), pp.10. Ramazani, J. (1994) Poetry of Mourning. London: University of Chicago Press Ltd. Silkin, J. (1977) Out of Battle: Poetry of the Great War. London: Oxford University Press. Stallworthy, J. (1993) Wilfred Owen. London: Oxford University Press. Thorne, S. (2006) Mastering Poetry. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan Word count 2260