Exposure, Anthem for Doomed Youth, Dulce et Decorum Est - An analysis of poetry by Wilfred Owen with specific reference to language use.

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Matthew Burton                        4lb                                03.11.02

Wilfred Owen [1893 - 1918]

Exposure

Anthem for Doomed Youth

Dulce et Decorum Est

An analysis of poetry of Wilfred Owen with specific reference to language use

Wilfred Owen was born on 18th March 1893, in Oswestry, Shropshire, as the son of Tom and Susan Owen. Wilfred displayed a keen interest in the arts; his first experiments in poetry began at the age of 17. He failed to attain entrance to the University of London, so he spent a year as lay assistant to the reverend Herbert Wigan at Dudson. After a year as lay assistant he decided to leave for Bordeaux, France, to teach at the Berlitz School of English.

Owen returned to England in September 1915 to enlist in the Artists’ Rifles a month later. He received his first commission to the Manchester Regiment (5th Battalion) in June 1916.

In January 1917 Owen was posted to France where he saw his first action in which he and his men were forced to hold a flooded dug-out in no-man’s land for fifty hours whilst under heavy bombardment. In March he was injured with concussion but returned to the front-line in April. In May he was caught in a shell explosion and was diagnosed with shell shock and was evacuated to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh.

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Owen’s time at Craiglockhart and the early parts of 1918, was in many ways his most creative, and wrote many of his poems for which he is remembered today. He rejoined his regiment at Scarborough in June 1918 and returned to France in August. Owen was awarded the Military Cross for bravery at Amiens, but was killed on 4th November whilst trying to lead his men across the Sambre Canal at Ors. The news of his death reached his parents on 11th November 1918, the day of Armistice.

The first of Owen’s poems of which I will analyse is “Exposure.” ...

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The Quality of Written Communication, whilst very basic, is very accurately presented. There are no spelling mistakes of grammatical inconsistencies to comment on, though a wider range of punctuation could be used to show the examiners that the candidate possesses a confident flair and enthusiasm for writing by varying sentence structure in their answer.

Where the candidate does succeed to a satisfactory level is when they finally start the analysis. Though, it could be argued that because the candidate has approached the essay poem-by-poem instead of point-by-point, the comparisons made are few and far between and the ones that are there are quite weak. To score highly and with plenty of time left to check your answers, candidates should aim to address this question point-by-point, that is, select a linguistic/poetic device that features in all/some of the poems such as emotive language (appearing in all three) and then comment on it's use in each of the poems, drawing quotes from each poem to analytically compare Owen's use of language. The next point could be personification (of the weaponry) which is is featured in all three, again. And the third point could be his use of imagery - 'Dulce et Decorum est' is the best one here, but the other two are also worth commentary. By doing the above, there is a more active feel for comparisons in the answer, because candidates will be making comparisons in the same paragraph, rather than across different paragraphs. Examiners like this writing style as well because it shows that the candidate can write abstractly without having to address each poem in turn to find anything comment-worthy.

This question requires a comparative analysis of three of Wilfred Owen's poems, with particular emphasis on his use of language. This Response to the Question is a nicely structured (though not perfect) answer. The reason it is not perfect is because it appears to be missing a conclusion the cohesively draws all the comparison point made in the essay into one, summarised ending. As well as this, there are about four/five paragraphs at the beginning of the essay that do not elicit any marks at all - it is a complete waste of time for any candidate studying Wilfred Owen to write at length a biography of his life when the question asks for no such thing. Candidates must be aware that to do this does not count as contextual appreciation - the only context required for the analyses of many of Owen's poems are his experiences at Craiglockhart and the experiences that sent him there. Other than that, the candidate collects no marks for recognising his birthplace of what regiment he was assigned to in which year. If this were an exam paper, the majority of time spent on writing that biography would completely ruin any chances of scoring higher than a D grade because of the time restraints preventing any effectual analysis thereafter with the allotted time.