Through his poetry Wilfred Owen wished to convey to the general public, the pity of the war. In a detailed examination of three poems, show the different ways in which he achieved this.

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Through his poetry Wilfred Owen wished to convey to the general public, the pity of the war.  In a detailed examination of three poems, show the different ways in which he achieved this.

Wilfred Owen was a tutor teaching English in the Berlitz school of English in France when the First World War began.  On his return to Britain in 1915, he enlisted in the army and served on the Western Front between January and June in 1917 until he was diagnosed with neurasthenia, also known as ‘shell-shock’.  As a result of this, he was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital, a specialist unit dedicated to the treatment of officers who had served on the front line and had come back for healing.  Here he met Siegfried Sassoon, a fellow poet suffering with a similar condition to himself.  Sassoon encouraged Owen to write about the war, not only to help him come to terms with what he had seen on the battlefield, but to convey to the public what was really happening during the ‘Great War’ and the pity of events that were taking place on the Western and Eastern fronts.  Government propaganda had lead those not fighting to believe that the British and their allies were having wonderful victories and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est pro patria mori’ meaning it was sweet and fitting to die for your country.

By means of a thorough investigation of three poems by Wilfred Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Disabled”, it can be said that the diversity of authorial stances, emotions styles and forms always add up to create and show the pity of the First World War.

The three poems by Wilfred Owen that are being examined here are very different in content.  In Anthem For Domed Youth, Owen describes the needless slaughtering of the men on the frontline saying they ‘die as cattle’.  He then goes on to express how the relatives of the dead remember the casualties whilst the generals continue their senseless actions regardless.  It can be said that this poem is aimed at people who wish to remember those who have died.   The title says that this is song to praise those that are almost certainly going to die fighting.  It could also be said that it is an attempt at trying to get the general public to recognise the fact that millions of soldiers lost their lives during the ‘Great War’ thereby evoking the pity of the war.  Owen has written this poem in a way making him the narrator.  He writes in the second person, as though he is someone watching the soldiers being cut down by constant assaults on the enemy trenches and then writing how he sees the events unfold.

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On the other hand, “Dulce et Decorum Est” is more of an attack on the people at home, sending their sons, fathers, brothers and uncles out to sign up for the armed forces rather than the generals being criticised for telling soldiers to walk right into machine gun fire as in “Anthem for Doomed Youth”.

‘My friend you would not tell with such high zest’

‘The old Lie: Dulce et decorum Est

Pro patria mori’

These lines clearly show that Owen is placing some of the blame on those at home for forcing men to go ...

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