Context
In order to fully understand and appreciate the poetry of Wilfred Owen, it's important to know a bit about the kind of man he was and the world around him that shaped and inspired his ideas.
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Wilfred Owen was born 18th March 1893. He was the eldest of four children. He was considered a "bookish" boy and his mother adored and favoured him over the rest of the family. Owen was not interested in 'boyish' pursuits and spent his time studying and learning.
Owen was brought up in an evangelical Anglican religion. An evangelical believes that man is saved, not by the good he does, but by his faith in God and "the redeeming power of Christ's sacrifice". Wilfred Owen cast off much of his faith due to his experiences in the war, but it still influenced his poetry strongly. In his poems you will find recurring themes of sacrifice and suffering and images of Hell. He also uses a lot of biblical language and many of his poems refer to religious rituals and ideals.
Owen was interested in writing poetry, art and music. His family could not afford to support his tertiary education so he worked as an assistant to the Vicar of Dunsden, Oxfordshire in return for room, board and tuition. His time with the Church made him turn against his religion, finding it too harsh. He rejected a career in the Church but this caused him emotional turmoil. Eventually he went to France as a tutor.
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In France, Owen missed much of the British propaganda designed to make young men join the war effort but eventually signed up and joined the Manchester Regiment as an officer. He was drafted to France in the worst winter of the war and spent much of his time on the front line. He spent time in No Man's Land, got concussion and spent days in a shell hole near the dismembered remains of a fellow officer. Owen experienced WWI first hand, in all its horror.
After this traumatic experience, Owen developed shell-shock (neurasthenia/PTSD) and was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital. He spent four months there and wrote a lot of poetry. It was here he met a fellow poet, Siegfried Sassoon who encouraged him and helped him develop his writing style. Owen's poetry became more mature and the war became his key subject matter. Owen met a number of other literary figures through Sassoon and began to get noticed himself.
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Owen healed and was found fit for duty. He was given a post at home in England but had grown bitter about the way governments and industrialists were using the young men of England and the war itself to further their own causes. Instead of staying safe at home, he decided to go back to the Front and fight. He won the Military Cross for "conspicuous gallantry". Wilfred Owen was killed in action seven days before the war ended.
(Adapted from the Chatto and Windus introduction)
Owen's Perspective
The senseless loss of life as well as the dehumanising effects of war outraged Owen. In the preface of the book of war poems Owen was compiling shortly before he was killed he wrote this:
“This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion or power, except war. Above all I am not concerned with poetry. My subject is war and the pity of war. The poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true poets must be truthful.
If I thought the letter of this book would last, I might have used proper names, but if the spirit of it survives – survives Prussia – my ambition and those names will have achieved themselves fresher fields than Flanders.” (Wilfred Owen) |
Although Owen says he was not concerned with poetry, his poems are exceptional, both technically and emotionally. His main concern however, was to reveal to all of England what the war was really like. He felt that a poet should warn about the horrors of war and draw attention to the terrible suffering and waste that war involved. A month before his death, Owen wrote these words to his mother:
“My nerves are in perfect order. I came out again in order to help these boys; directly by leading them as well as an officer can; indirectly by watching their sufferings that I may speak of them as well as a pleader can.”
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Owen’s depth of compassion distinguishes him as one of the world’s finest First World War poets. The voice of Owen has maintained its clarity down through time and several more wars. We would be foolish to think that his poetry belongs only to one place and time in history, or is relevant to only one war. Owen’s poetry speaks to all humanity about the ramifications of any situation that pits human against human.
Owen presents the soldier as being sacrificed but to no purpose. He is damned without hope. Very few of Owen’s poems take place in daylight or sunlight. During the war dawn was the most likely time for an enemy attack - Owen felt men were nearest to death then.
Other Useful Sites
A very thorough biography that also explores the essential elements of a number of Owen's poems. If you read this, you'll get a great sense of the man.
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A solid, reliable biography
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This biography focuses more on the emotional impact of context on Owen.
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A detailed Wikipedia biography
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A timeline of Owen's life.
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