Analysis of Anthem for doomed Youth

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Anthem for Doomed Youth  

     - Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen was born the 18th of March 1893 in United Kingdom. He's probably, one of the most important English War Poets. The popularity of Owen today can be explained by his condemnation of the horrors of war. As an English poet, he is noted for his anger at the cruelty and waste of war and his pity for its victims. He said,” “My subject is War and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”

The title, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, gives the first impression of the poem. An ‘anthem’, is a song of praise, perhaps sacred, so we get the impression that the poem might be about something religious or joyous. However, the anthem is for ‘Doomed Youth’ which describes something negative.

The poet shows his anger and bitterness in the first part of the poem.  In the second part of the poem he expresses his sadness at the pathetic condition of the soldiers. The poem is a sonnet. The first stanza is mainly about the battlefield, whereas the second stanza is more about the reactions of friends and family back at home. The poem starts with a rhetorical question and is very intense from the starting. In order to express his ideas, Owen mixes the sad, calm images of a funeral with the chaotic, explosive images of a battlefield. The poet uses poetic techniques such as imagery, personification, assonance and alliteration and sound (onomatopoeia) to convey his ideas and feelings. He uses the rhyme scheme effectively.

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 In the first line, he uses a simile to describe the soldiers as ‘cattle’ and says that they die an insignificant death as there are no passing bells for them. ‘Passing-bells’ is “a bell tolled after someone's death to announce the departure of that person from this world”.  Here it can either mean that there are not enough bells, or there is no time to ring the bells for each dying soldier. “The monstrous anger of the guns” is the answer for the first line, and describes what the soldiers receive. The line is onomatopoeic and gives an image of ...

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The Level of Analysis shown here is indicative of a low/middle B grade for GCSE. The candidate demonstrates and adeptness and accurately identifying poetic devices and comments on them with flair and enthusiasm. However, in some parts, particularly towards the beginning of the essay (and lending to the quite awkward start) the candidate's analysis is not as apparent

This candidate here has shown a good response to the question. The candidate comments on a number of poetic devices present in 'Anthem for Doomed Youth', and is one of the few candidates whose answer I have read to find a sound analysis of the title. Candidates almost always underestimate the the gravity of a poem's title and start their analysis at the first stanza most of the time, but this poem's title has a very resonant effect. The analysis isn't expressed as clearly as it could be, with the buzz word "irony" not being mentioned at all, and there could be further elaboration into the effect changing the title from 'Anthem for Dead Youth' to 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' - the one word change shifts the focus from the dead to those walking to their inevitable deaths, so the emotive resonance of the helplessness of it all is magnified exponentially.