Changes Made to the Draft of Strange Meeting

1664 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Themes of war poetry

Changes Made to the Draft of Strange Meeting

Reality in warfare and the painful truths that accompany war are skillfully presented in

Wilfred Owen's war poem "Strange Meeting." Owen's poem is more powerful thanks to

revisions the poet made as he struggled to understand the devastating effects of war, both

emotionally and socially. "Strange Meeting" underwent changes during its composition that

signify changes in Owen's understanding of warfare and human interactions. As he states in a

draft of a preface to a book of poems, "My subject is War and the pity of War. The Poetry is in

the pity" (Ellmann and O'Clair 542). Throughout the development of this poem, one can see

Owen's concept of this pity change from a personal tragedy to a more universal waste. Owen

made several important changes to his poem "Strange Meeting" that enabled this universal pity

to be more clearly presented. He made the scene of the poem less dream-like and more like an

actual encounter, he eliminated references to the identity of the enemy, and through this, the

universality of his poem, the pity of war, is more plainly and powerfully conveyed.

The original version of "Strange Meeting" portrays the moment captured in the poem as

a sort of dream sequence. Several changes were made to the poem to make the setting more

plausible and realistic. The first line was altered from "It seems that from my dugout I escaped"

to "It seems that out of the battle I escaped" (Owen 541). This change is not a minor one. It is

one of the most significant cues about the location and nature of the action within the poem

given to the reader. Owen's...

... middle of paper ...

...

pity, these two soldiers did not desire to die, and yet soldiers do die, they all contribute to each

other's death, they all bleed. They are all impacted forever by the hell of war. The "Foreheads

of men have bled where no wounds were" (Owen 542). There is no escaping the destruction and

loss, the pity of war, which is the same devastation for all men.

Works Cited

Ellmann, Richard and Robert O'Clair, ed. The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 2nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton

and Co., 1988.

Owen, Wilfred. "Strange Meeting." 1920. Ellamman and O'Clair 541-2.

"The Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive." Virtual Seminars for Teaching Literature.

p. 1: http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/images/mss/bl/ms43720/20f3a.jpg

p. 2: http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/images/mss/bl/ms43720/20f4a.jpg.

Show More
Related

  • Teen Suicide Essay

    536 Words  | 2 Pages

    Teen suicide can result from a number of scenarios. When you hear of teens who commit suicide, a lot of people would think it's due to the most common cases which are unhappiness or depression. But in fact, there are different factors to what causes suicide. For an example, as stated in the article Teen Suicide from Kids Health, teens attempt suicide for multiple reasons. These reasons revolve around psychological problems such as anxiety, bipolar disorders, or drug abuse or even dealing with bisexuality or homosexuality in an unsupportive family or hostile school environment. The individuals who usually face th...

    Read More

  • The Guilt They Carried in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried

    1414 Words  | 3 Pages

    These men are transformed into guilt-laden soldiers in less than a day, as they all grapple for a way to come to terms with the pain of losing a comrade. In an isolated situation, removed from the stressors, anxieties, and uncertainties of war, perhaps they may have come to a more rational conclusion as to who is deserving of blame. But tragically, they cannot come to forgive themselves for something for which they are not even guilty. As Norman Bowker so insightfully put it prior to his unfortunate demise, war is “Nobody’s fault, everybody’s” (197).

    Read More

  • Gather Ye Ice-Cream While Ye May: An In Depth Analysis of Wallace Stevens' “The Emperor of Ice-Cream”

    1648 Words  | 4 Pages

    From the very first word of the poem, there is a command coming from an unnamed speaker. This establishes a sense of authority and gives the speaker a dominant position where they are dictating the poem to the reader rather than a collaborative interacti...

    Read More

  • Perception In Odysseus In Homer's Odyssey

    1850 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are many different perceptions in this world, one might think that someone dying in war is awful, and another might think that it is beautiful because someone is dying for a cause. For that man or woman to die he has to be thinking about the communal good and what will happen to himself for doing that. Because if he does not die that others may die, in a world like this everything has a cost. This also happens in Odysseus’ world we have a cost for something but they have a bigger cost because they have to lose an army by a god for someone else to be able to get back to their home.

    Read More

  • Analysis of "The Things They Carried"

    755 Words  | 2 Pages

    War is not just about the physical things that soldiers carry on a daily basis. The things they carried are so much more, even though the physical does take up a majority of the weight of a soldier. So many emotional burdens and tolls are to be accounted for when thinking about the units of the military fighting in the war and how they have to deal with them while in the midst of gunfire and hell.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front Essay

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...horrific war, the men do not believe they will have psychological and physical power to continue on with life outside of the war.

    Read More

  • Holden's Pessimistic View of the World in The Catcher in the Rye

    826 Words  | 2 Pages

    Holden is a pessimistic, remote, and miserable character and he expresses this attitude through dialogue, tone, and diction. Throughout the book he has remained to be a liar, a failure, a loner, and lastly, a suicidal guy who feels like he has no purpose in life. Perhaps Salinger expressed his perceptions and emotions of his teen years in this book and it was a form of conveying his deep inner feelings of his childhood. Readers can see this clearly shown in The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger.

    Read More

  • The Importance of Elements in Poetry

    810 Words  | 2 Pages

    The elements in the poem work very well together to help set the theme of this poem. The tone set the overall mood of the poem, so show that it was rushed but not in a chaotic way. The imagery helps to show us little details of the setting, which are very helpful. And finally, the figures of speech, help the reader to compare the scene to things they have experienced in their lifetime to fully understand the poem.

    Read More

  • The Full Effects of War

    2071 Words  | 5 Pages

    To begin with, the easiest point of discussion is one of the physical effects of war. We all know that there are many physical effects of war, recently on Extreme Makeover – Home Edition, Ty Pennington and his crew rebuilt a soldiers family home mainly for one reason – he came home physically handicapped fighting for our country in one of the current wars. Stephen Crane states in his poem “Do not weep maiden, for war is kind. Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky” (686). Quite simply, one horrible physical effect of war is death. Crane perpetuates this by stating “Because your father… Raged at his breast, gulped and died (686). Further, there are other physical effects that beg for the support of the individuals throughout the states, a few of these ma...

    Read More

  • 1950's Culture Exposed in The Catcher in the Rye

    1360 Words  | 3 Pages

    Holden attacks various weaknesses in the 50's society. He criticizes nearly everything that he observes, and refuses to pull punches. Often Holden uses his brilliant talent of observation to discover the true motives behind the people he calls "phony." Through his observations the reader can interpret Salinger's view of the 1950's culture. Holden's perceptions of paranoia, conformity, and the consumer culture convey Salinger's views.

    Read More

  • Suicide in Adolescents

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention established that 6.3% of high school students have attempted suicide in the preceding year. Given the lethal consequences of suicide attempts, determining risk factors among adolescents becomes especially important. Generally speaking, psychiatric disorders and substantial psychosocial impairments are known to be associated with suicide attempts. However, previous research attempting to identify specific risk factors in adolescents is somewhat ambiguous. Nonetheless, one thing is consistent. When measuring the risk of an adolescent committing suicide, information must come from a variety of sources and perspectives. These sources may include but are not limited to a clinical interview with the adolescent, information provided by the parent or guardian, standardized assessments and previous psychiatric documents from the individual.

    Read More

  • The Sleeper Literary Analysis Essay

    1056 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first literary device that can be found throughout the poem is couplet, which is when two lines in a stanza rhyme successfully. For instance, lines 1-2 state, “At midnight, in the month of June / I stand beneath the mystic moon.” This is evidence that couplet is being used as both June and moon rhyme, which can suggest that these details are important, thus leading the reader to become aware of the speaker’s thoughts and actions. Another example of this device can be found in lines 16-17, “All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies / (Her casement open to the skies).” These lines not only successfully rhyme, but they also describe a woman who

    Read More

  • Essay On Negative Body Image

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    90% of suicide victims suffer from depression. A teen going through depression may seem hopeless, have a lack of sleep or appetite, and interested. Helping depressed teens coop with their illness is also important in preventing suicide. Drug or alcohol use also are associated with suicide. Teens who partake in drug or alcohol use have a likelihood to continue destructive behavior by attempting suicide. If a teen witnessed suicide from another family member, they are three times more likely to commit suicide themselves. By seeing suicide being modeled as an acceptable coping mechanism, they contemplate suicide more seriously. Adolescents that undergo any type of stressful events in their life, have a higher chance of committing suicide because they do not understand how to cope with

    Read More

  • The Problem of Teenage Suicide

    1928 Words  | 4 Pages

    Now the eighth-leading cause of death overall in the U.S. and the third-leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years, suicide has become the subject of much recent focus. U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, for instance, recently announced his Call to Action to Prevent Suicide, 1999, an initiative intended to increase public awareness, promote intervention strategies, and enhance research. The media, too, has been paying very close attention to the subject of suicide, writing articles and books and running news stories. Suicide among our nation’s youth, a population very vulnerable to self-destructive emotions, has perhaps received the most discussion of late. Maybe this is because teenage suicide seems the most tragic—lives lost before they’ve even started. Yet, while all of this recent focus is good, it’s only the beginning. We cannot continue to lose so many lives unnecessarily.

    Read More

  • A Critical Analysis Of "the Parting" By Michael Drayton

    864 Words  | 2 Pages

    the poem what he would normally have written a paragraph or more on. For example,

    Read More

More about Changes Made to the Draft of Strange Meeting

Open Document