An analysis of the poetry of Wilfred Owen with specific reference to language used.
Laura Harvey 4Ng 15th January 2004 Wilfred Owen.[1893-1918] The Last Laugh. The Send Off. The Anthem for Doomed Youth. An analysis of the poetry of Wilfred Owen with specific reference to language used. Wilfred Owen was an English poet who specialised in writing about the war. Owen was born on 18th March 1893 in Oswestry. He was the son of a railway worker and the eldest of four children. Owen started his education at the Birkenhead Institute and then continued his education at the Shrewsbury Technical School. Wilfred Owen then started work as a pupil-teacher at Wyle Cop School while he prepared for his matriculation exam for the University of London. After failing to win a scholarship, in 1913, he found work as an English teacher at the Berlitz School in Bordeaux. In October 1915 he joined the army. The next he knew was that he was fighting at the Somme. He returned to England and was put in hospital only two years after he joined up in 1917 because of shellshock. Explosions from nearby shells and the content of the war caused the shellshock in general. Owen was send to Craiglockhart Hospital, in Edinburgh, and met Siegfried Sassoon, another war poet. In August 1918 Owen was declared fit and returned to the Western front. He fought at Beaurevoir-Fonsomme, where he was awarded the Military Cross.
Discuss - 'Mental Cases', 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' and 'The Send-Off', by Wilfred Owen.
Discuss in detail the 3 poems, which have had the most affect on you from the selection you have studied. Explain your choice. The three poems, which have had the most effect on me, are the following: 'Mental Cases', 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' and 'The Send-Off'. Wilfred Owen wrote all of these. Before I began studying these poems, I had a few ideas on what war would be like. I thought about the conditions they lived in (Mud, rotting bodies etc), and the appearance of the soldiers. My thoughts were challenged extremely throughout these poems as they described more horrifically than I imagined. The first one I have chosen is "Mental Cases". The poem describes the way in which the soldiers lived in the trenches and what the conditions were like and how the soldiers looked physically. In the lives of the soldiers, it was perpetually twilight. They have 'drooping tongues' which is like saying that they can't eat properly. They are 'baring teeth' which show these insane grins. Their life isn't worth living as they have 'stroke on stroke of pain'. The poet uses repetition here. - 'stroke on stroke'. In other words, they live everyday with pain - either being injured or the hurt of seeing their fellow soldiers and friends die. Their eyes are described to be sunken into their skulls. This shows that all their fat and muscles have been eaten away and they practically bare the
Wilfred Owen`s War Poems.
Wilfred Owen`s War Poems Wilfred Owen was born on 18th March 1893 in Oswestry, Britain. Wilfred Owen was a compassionate poet, his work provides the finest descriptions and critique of the soldier`s experiences during World War 1. He was killed in battle on 4th November 1918 in Ors, France, one week before the peace was declared. World War 1 "The Great War" also called "The war to end all wars" broke out in the year 1914 and ended in the year 1918. For many years afterwards its causes, and the conduct of all the participants were minutely picked-over, investigated and analysed. After, numerous books were written on all the War's aspects. Those soldiers who had fought in the trenches returned home and tried to resume normal lives - often by no means easy, especially for those who had been wounded, not only physically but also mentally by the horrors which they had experienced. Disabled shows the after effects of a soldier after this war ended. It shows how human beings not only loose parts of their bodies but also lose their future and their desire to live as portrated in the soldier that this poem is based on because he is not able to do the things that he used to do before being in the war. Mental Cases The narrator in this three stanza poem observes men in a mental hospital who suffer from what at the time was called shell shock and now might be labeled post-traumatic
Dulce Et Decorum Est. Wilfred Owen is addressing the poem to people back in England where he was born and to show the people who think war is great that it is dreadful and terrifying.
Thursday 15th November 2007 Joe Hemingway 9W 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' In 1914 the First World War began. Many countries were involved in the war like England, France, Germany and many more. The poem I am going to talk about was written by a poet called Wilfred Owen. Wilfred Owen was born on the 18th march 1893 in oswestry, Shropshire, son of Thomas and Susan Owen. After the death of his grandfather in 1897 the family moved to Birkenhead (Merseyside). Owens earliest experiments in poetry began at the age of 17.Owen became increasingly aware of the magnitude of the war and returned to England in September 1915 to enlist in the Artists' Rifles a month later. In 1917 in January Wilfred Owen was sent to France and saw his first action in which he and his men were forced to hold a flooded dug-out in no-mans land for fifty hours whilst under heavy bombardment.Unfotunately Wilfred Owen died a week before the great war ended. The news of his death reached his parents on November 11th 1918, the day of the armistice. The poem I am talking about is called 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' which means it is sweet and proper. The poem is about what goes on during the war and how terrible and scary war is. The poem mainly talks about soldiers on the front-line and soldiers in the trenches. The poem mentions all the daily struggles soldiers went through
Doomed Youth
Anthem for doomed youth is a poem by Wilfred Owen in which there is a sinister atmosphere evoked by the poet's use of imagery, rhythm, alliteration, symbolism and structure. This sinister atmosphere add to my appreciation of the poem by the effectiveness of these techniques at bringing me closer to the emotions and allowing me to consider the impact of such event on real people. The poem has an ironic title, an anthem being a celebratory song whilst doomed has negative connotations of death and sadness. It is set in the trenches of World War One and compares the realities of death on the battlefield with the traditional, religious funeral service. The poem is split into two parts, first part, an eight line octet evokes the noises of battle, whilst the second part, a six line sestet, deal with the settled grief left behind after a death. Throughout Owen skilfully evokes a sinister atmosphere by using various literary techniques to suggest the cold, ominous and sinister atmosphere of a funeral. In the first line of this sonnet Owen refers to the dead soldiers as "those who die as cattle", this simile introduces the idea of death and compares the deaths to those of cattle to suggest for the first time his theme that death in such circumstance is not glorious, but futile. He then further develops the sinister atmosphere by introducing the thought of a funeral, by using the word
Dulce Et Decorum Est.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST In the poem "Dulce et Decorum est" by Wilfred Owen the poet sets out to make clear to the reader his point of view. Wilfred Owen served as an officer during the First World War and so had suffered many ghastly experiences and seen sights that were to haunt him until his death at the end of the war. Consequently, he wrote poems about his war experiences in the hopes they would make people stop and consider the soldiers' sufferings as well as the right and wrongs of war. One such poem is "Dulce et Decorum est" in which Wilfred Owen describes how all the soldiers were trudging back to their trenches after fighting. A gas shell dropped behind them as they hurried to fit their gas masks: "An ecstasy of fumbling, fitting the clumsy helmets just in time." Because they were so exhausted they did not hear the noise of the gas shells dropping. One man did not fit his gas mask in time and inhaled the gas which began burning his lungs. Wilfred Owen said the sight haunted him in his dreams: "In all my dreams before my helpless sight, he plunges at me." The men threw the dying man into a wagon to get away from the gas as quickly as possible. The point of view that Wilfred Owen was trying to put forward was that he thinks everyone should know the truth about war - it is not all good and glory. It is terrible with miserable conditions so young boys should not
Wilfred Owen 'Dulce et decorum est'.
Dulce et decorum est In this poem, by Wilfred Owen 'Dulce et decorum est' Owen was attempting to across the full horror of the First World War. In great detail get he describes a soldier suffering and dying in a gas attack. The poem is written from the point of view of an eyewitness who was there before during and after the attack. Owen finishes by asking the reader to tell their children the truth about the war and not the 'old lie' that it is sweet and fitting to die for your country, 'Dulce et decorum est pro pratria mori'. In the poem 'dulce et decorum est' (which means it is sweet and fitting) The poem is narrative and in sections. The first section is the men going to rest the second is .the gas attack in the trenches. The third is the man having bad dreams to do with the incident. The fourth is explaining if you had seen what he had seen you would not want to tell your children of these awful conditions. The rhyme scheme goes ABABCDCDEFEF I did not notice this at first, this is very good poetry and the words are well thought out. The similes in this poem are very good 'flound'ring like a man in fire or lime' this means the man was going all over the place and it was like he was on fire. There are also a lot of metaphors 'Men marched asleep' this is because the men were so tired it looked as though they were asleep. This poem has got a very sad, dark and somber feel
