Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, MC (March 18, 1893 – November 4, 1918) was an English poet. Owen is regarded by some as the leading poet of the First World War, known for his war poetry on the horrors of trench and gas warfare. He died in action in France in 1918; most of his poetry was published posthumously.

Born at Plas Wilmot near Oswestry in Shropshire on the 18th of March 1893 of mixed English and Welsh ancestry, he was educated at the Birkenhead Institute and at Shrewsbury Technical School. He worked as a pupil-teacher at Wyle Cop School while studying for the University of London entrance exams then, prior to the outbreak of World War I, as a private tutor at the Berlitz School in Bordeaux, France.

On 21st October 1915, he enlisted in the Artists' Rifles and in January 1917 was commissioned as a second lieutenant with The Manchester Regiment. After some traumatic experiences, Owen was diagnosed as suffering from shell shock and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh for treatment. It was whilst recuperating at Craiglockhart that he was to meet fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon, an encounter which was to transform Owen's life.

Sassoon had a profound effect on Owen's poetic voice, and Owen's most famous poems (Dulce et Decorum Est and Anthem for Doomed Youth) show direct results of Sassoon's influence. Owen's poetry would eventually be more widely acclaimed than that of his mentor, which has led to the misconception that Owen was naturally the superior artist. While his use of pararhyme, with its heavy reliance on assonance, was both innovative and, in some of his works, quite brilliant, he was not the only poet at the time to utilise that particular technique.

As for his poetry itself, its content was undeniably changed by his work with Sassoon. Sassoon's emphasis on realism and 'writing from experience' was not exactly unheard of to Owen, but it was not a style which he had previously made use of. Sassoon himself contributed to this by his strong promotion of Owen's poetry, both before and after Owen's death.

Thousands of poems were published during the war, but very few of them had the benefit of such strong patronage, and it is as a result of Sassoon's influence, as well as support from Edith Sitwell and the editing of his poems into a new anthology in 1921 by Edmund Blunden that ensured his popularity, coupled with a revival of interest ...

... middle of paper ...

...to be told. (Sassoon was violently opposed to the idea of Owen returning to the trenches, threatening to 'stab [him] in the leg' if he tried it. Aware of his attitude, Owen did not inform him of his action until he was once again in France). Owen was killed on the fourth of November 1918 during the crossing of the Sambre-Oise Canal, only a week before the end of the war. There is some speculation that his death was in fact a suicide. Specifically, he stood and exposed himself to machine gun fire unnecessarily.Citation needed His mother received the telegram informing her of his death on Armistice Day. He is buried at Ors Communal Cemetery.

Only five of Owen's poems had been published before his death, one of which was in fragmentary form. His best known poems include Anthem for Doomed Youth, Dulce Et Decorum Est, The Parable of the Old Man and the Young, and Strange Meeting. Some of his poems feature in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem.

It should be noted that many of Owen's poems have never been published in popular form - those who wish to read Owen's full unexpurgated opus should consult the academic two-volume work The Complete Poems and Fragments (1994) by Jon Stallworthy.