Wilfred Owen and his Pity of War

Through His Poetry Wilfred Owen Wished to Convey, to the General

Public, the Pity of War. In a Detailed Examination of these Poems,

With Reference to Others, Show the Different ways in which He achieved this.

Wilfred Owen fought in the war as an officer in the Battle of the

Somme. He entered the war in January of 1917. However he was

hospitalised for war neurosis and was sent for rehabilitation at

Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh that May. At Craiglockhart he

met Siegfried Sassoon, a poet and novelist whose grim antiwar works

were in harmony with Wilfred Owen's concerns. It was at Craiglockhart

where Wilfred Owen produced the best work of his short career under

the tutelage of Siegfried Sassoon. Siegfried Sassoon had recently made

a public declaration against the continuation of the war by throwing

his Military Cross medal for bravery into the River Mersey in

Liverpool. Wilfred Owen's earlier work ignored the subject of war but

Siegfried Sassoon urged him to write on the war. Wilfred Owen wrote

his poems while at Craiglockhart as a cathartic experience to help him

to forget his experiences in France. He also wrote his poems as an

attempt to stop the war and to make people realise how horrific it

was.

In a thorough examination of the poems "Anthem for Doomed Youth",

"Dulce et Decorum Est" and "Disabled" and also with some reference to

other works by Owen, it can be seen that he uses different poetical

features, styles and methods. Wilfred Owen addresses his readers from

different stances right up to him addressing the reader personally.

This method is very effective in evoking feelings from great anger and

bitterness to terrible sadness and even sarcasm, making the reader

sometimes even feel guilty. Whichever way he chooses to portray the

pity of the war the end result is always the same.

"Dulce Et Decorum Est" is a direct attack at the people in Britain who

had been taken in by the propaganda drive by telling them the truth of

what life is really like at the front and in what conditions their

sons, fathers, brothers etc. are in. "Dulce Et Decorum Est" consists

of four unequal stanzas, the first two in sonnet form, and the last

two in a looser structure. The first stanza sets the scene of soldiers

limping back from the front. The authorial stance is of Owen telling

us of his own personal experiences. The second stanza focuses on one

man who could not get his gas mask on in time. This is a recurring

nightmare that Owen has, where he sees one man "drown" in the gas and