Choose a period of transitions of Owens work and analyse.
Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 Oswestry, Shropshire. He was educated at
Birkenhead Institute and Shrewsbury Technical College.
He was deeply attached to his mother (Susan Shaw) and she was probably
the most important person in his short life. She was the one who
introduced him to the arts as she herself was also educated in music
and painting .A great deal of his letters were addressed to her, and
the reverence to the love he felt for her is evident.
In 1911 he became lay assistant to the vicar of Dunsden near Reading
in order to establish whether he had a vocation for the Anglican
priesthood. However this left him disillusioned with both the clerical
life and evangelised type of Christianity. He was to leave here in
1913.
From the age of nineteen Owen wanted to be a poet and engrossed
himself in poetry, being especially impressed by Keats and Shelley. At
first he wrote poems in the romantic tradition but this style of
writing was evolving to a more factual method. It wasn’t until after
he experienced warfare, did he change his views about the nature of
literary art, and his new poems consisted mainly of war poems.
Owen felt pressured by the propaganda to become a soldier and
volunteered on 21st October 1915.
On a personal level this war was to have an effect upon Owen, unlike
many previous wars the British had fought (eg the Boar war several
years before). The romantic notions of honour and chivalry attached to
war were quickly dispelled. However, in 1915 Owen’s work displayed a
distinct style, but also the love and frivolity of youth.
“From my diary, July 1914”, one of Owens earlier poems shows an
example of the romantic style of writing he produced before seeing the
bloody effects of war. This poem can be seen as very cleverly written.
Owen carries throughout alliteration both vertically and horizontally.
It is obvious in this poem that Owen has not yet experienced war, his
writing is cheerful with hope and expectations, it is chirpy and this
mood is carried throughout the poem. “Lives Wakening with wonder...”
Perhaps he is writing about his own knowledge as he is a teenager and
at an experimental age. Another quote that can have the same type of
meaning is, “Boys Bursting the surface of the ebony pond” is this a
way of explaining the break through from boy to man.
We can also feel a sense of love in his tone as he speaks of
“...Laughing the love laugh with me” a feeling of joy and also
Or at least a form of love, he had refounded his awe of Judy
was all lies created to make people sign up for war and it's not in
other hand, John Mc Crae was in the 2nd wave of poets. He viewed war
"From the time of my marriage to this day the love I have borne my wife has been sincere and unabated; and only those who have felt the glowing tenderness a father cherishes for his offspring, can appreciate my affection for the beloved children which have since been born to us" (22).
told he was out of action for six months. It was here that he first
Both Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” as well as “next to of course god america i” written by E.E. Cummings preform critic on war propaganda used during the first world war. Besides this the influence war propaganda has on the soldiers as individuals as well as on war in more general terms, is being portrayed in a sophisticated and progressive manner. By depicting war with the use of strong literary features such as imagery or sarcasm both texts demonstrate the harshness of war as well as attempt to convey that war propaganda is, as Owen states “an old lie”, and that it certainly is not honourable to die for one’s country. Therefore, the aim of both writers can be said to be to frontally attack any form of war promotion or support offensively
whole feeling of it, The Giver told him the feeling that was so strong in the room is love” (P.125).
How Wilfred Owen Uses Language and Imagery in His Poetry to Communicate his Attitudes of War
Human conflict is a violent confrontation between groups of people due to differences in values and beliefs. During World War I, poet and soldier, Wilfred Owen, faced the harsh realities of human conflict, dying at a young age of 25, only six days before the war ended. Owen’s personal encounters during war had a profound influence on his life as reflected in the poems and letters he wrote before his passing. In using a variety of poetic devices to write about the suffering and brutality of war, vividly captured in his poems ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, Owen effectively conveys his own perspective about human conflict. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ depicts the horrific scenes on the battlefield and a grotesque death from drowning
Along with the countless amounts of ways that Wilfred Owen gets the reader to visualize what he is trying to say in the poem “Arms and the Boy”, he also uses a great deal of figurative language. The text in the poem is extremely figurative. Owen uses these consistent sounds to portray the evil the innocent boy is forced to face. In addition to alliteration, Owen expands his use of figurative language with the vibrant use of similes as well as metaphors. “Blue with all malice, like a madman 's flash” (3) is the first use of a simile that Owen uses, and it is incredibly efficient in comparing both the “bayonet-blade” (1) and a “madman 's flash” (3). Owen 's comparison helps the reader understand the brutality of that bayonet blade the boy is
World War one and two. Both these wars stole many young men’s lives from them. Stole sons from their mothers. Stole brothers from their sister but also stole many innocent lives in the process. An estimated 60 million lives lost and for what? For land, for power, wealth. War is brutal, gruesome, costly and pointless. What good could possibly come from a war? The truth is without these wars, the world of literature wouldn’t be the same. These wars bought rise to names such as Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, and Edward Thomas. Among all that death, destruction, and calamity; somehow great poets were born.
“In what ways does the poet draw you into the world of poetry? Detailed reference to 2 poems”
Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” makes the reader acutely aware of the impact of war. The speaker’s experiences with war are vivid and terrible. Through the themes of the poem, his language choices, and contrasting the pleasant title preceding the disturbing content of the poem, he brings attention to his views on war while during the midst of one himself. Owen uses symbolism in form and language to illustrate the horrors the speaker and his comrades go through; and the way he describes the soldiers, as though they are distorted and damaged, parallels how the speaker’s mind is violated and haunted by war.
In the poems “Dulce et Decorum Est” written by Wilfred Owen and “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” written by Randall Jarrell, which both touch on the issues of war. In these two poems the Speaker uses imagery, diction, and sorrow to show how brutal the war was. They both convey the horror and futility of dying for a state. “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” (Randall Jarrell 1945) and “Dulce et Decorum Est” (Wilfred Owen 1920) examine the impact war has on the soldiers who fight them.
naïve view of war. But to be fair, he could not know what the next