How far does the poetry of Wilfred Owen break new ground in the tradition of war poetry?

Authors Avatar

How far does the poetry of Wilfred Owen break new ground in the tradition of war poetry?

        Before the First World War, war poetry was written by non-combatants, whether it was for or against war. Wilfred Owen was one of the first to break this tradition. He went to war so he was writing from experience. A lot of soldiers before the First World War were illiterate, so they could not convey their emotions in poetry. World War One was the first time when literate men joined up. Their experiences in the trenches were expressed in their anti-war poetry.

        Wilfred Owen was in France when war broke out, so he returned to England and volunteered to be an army officer. He was back in France at the end of 1916 in the Somme sector. In spring 1917, he took part in the attack on the Hindenberg Line, near St. Quentin. A huge shell burst near him, giving him shell shock. He wrote a letter to his mother in May 1917, which said, “Suffer dishonour and disgrace, but never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed, but do not kill”. The war had obviously had a severe impact on him. He was treated for shell shock at Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh where he wrote poems for therapy. Craiglockhart was a hospital for soldiers with war trauma. It was there, in August 1917, that he met Sassoon, a much more distinguished and renowned poet, who encouraged him to write poems.

        Many men died in World War One. ¾ of a million British soldiers were killed and 1½ million were seriously wounded. Wilfred Owen himself was killed on 4th November 1918, helping to retake a canal. His parents were notified of his death at noon on 11th November, one hour after hostilities ceased.  

        ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is an example of pre twentieth century war poetry. It is based on an incident in the Crimean War, which took place between 1854-1856. Alfred Tennyson wrote this poem in 1854 about the Light Brigade’s charge on the Russian guns at Balaclava. Tennyson wrote this piece after reading an account of the charge by W.H. Russell, a war correspondent for ‘The Times’. While he honours the bravery and heroism of the soldiers, “Noble six hundred!” he doesn’t have any first hand experience of the war, so he has no evidence of what actually happened. He doesn’t focus on one particular person at any point in the poem, but he is still glorifying how the men died for their country,

Join now!

        “Their’s not to make reply,

          Their’s not to reason why,

          Their’s but to do and die”

The poem states, “Some one had blundered”. The soldiers knew that someone had made a mistake in their order so they knew they were going to be killed, but they rode in anyway. Tennyson is glorifying how obedient the soldiers are. Tennyson uses a lot of repetition in this piece to emphasise certain important verses, “Cannon to the right of them, Cannon to the left of them, Cannon behind them”. There is also a strong rhythm throughout the poem, giving the feeling ...

This is a preview of the whole essay