Literary Analysis Of Wilfred Owen's Anthem For A Doomed Youth

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Wilfred Owen’s poem “Anthem for a Doomed Youth” is a 14 lined sonnet written in a deviated form of iambic pentameter. This poem has a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCD EFFEGG with the first stanza being an octet and the second stanza being a sestet. Owen uses the Petrarchan sonnet form with a Shakespearean style rhyme scheme. Owen does, however, deviate from the typical iambic pentameter style by using extra syllables and a different number of stressed and unstressed syllables in each line. Generally, in a sonnet where there is a separation in stanzas, there will be a shift in the poet’s ideas, a change of course, or a problem and a solution, in “Anthem for a Doomed Youth” the shift is from the battlefield to the citizens back home. Throughout the poem …show more content…

Owen also uses personification in line three by writing “the stuttering rifles…” Coming into line four Owen once again uses religion in contrast to war by mentioning “…hasty orisons.” The word “hasty” illuminates the suddenness that is death on the battlefield coupled with “orisons” produces imagery of a soldier trying to pray on last time as his life is ending. Throughout the rest of the poem there is religious imagery that is then contrasted by the frontlines of …show more content…

Owen once again starts this stanza with a question which he then answers himself. Owen asks “What candles may be held to speed them all?” the “candles” are a metaphor for the ceremonies held for those who have passed on, Owen seems to be asking whether or not we can really honour every single soldier who gave his life. In lines 10 and 11 Owen states that in the battlefield there are no candles lit, only the tears of fellow soldiers as the ritual to send a dead one off. Line 11 also has the use of alliteration with “…glimmers of

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