Essays on Wilfred Owen

The poem Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen was written during World War I in 1917, when Owen was recovering from shell shock in a war hospital in Edinburgh. Hence, Owen writes from the perspective of a soldier on a battlefield. The persona presents...

Wilfred Owen, a war poet, uses a great number of linguistic and structural devices throughout his poems in order to express his anger at the war. In this essay I will focus on three of his works: ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’...

In Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen uses a variety of literary devices to highlight the monstrous disjuncture between the gruesome reality of the battlefield and the romanticised image of war that circulated through poetry, newspapers, and magazines at the start of the World War...

As poets responding to the turmoil of war, authors Wilfred Owen and W.H. Auden both explore the causes and consequences of rejection. The two men in particular emphasise the psychological impact that war has on human beings who are unjustly cast aside from society for...

Owen means to present to his readers the true victims of war – those who lived and not the dead. In doing so he seeks to bring out the truly horrific aspects of war. These aspects lead their victims to end up in varied severe...

Wilfred Owen utilises poetic techniques to create vivid imagery, expressing the trepidation and squander of war. This is most prominent in the poems ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ as well as ‘Insensibility’. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ disruption of the ode form and violent imagery reveal the...

Wilfred Owen’s “Strange Meeting” explores an extraordinary meeting between two enemy combatants in the midst of battle. Owen forgoes the familiar poetics of glory and honor associated with war and, instead, constructs a balance of graphic reality with compassion for the entrenched soldier. In fact,...

Wilfred Owen incorporates many techniques in his poems to present his didactic views to the reader. In this case Owen attempts to teach the reader about the struggles of the youth affected by World War One allowing his concern for the youth to be developed...

The notion of guilt is very strong in Owen’s poetry. He uses guilt in his poetry so as to highlight the indifference of those back at home as well as the authorities. These should feel guilty for sending their youth to die but they do...

A commentary on the development of ideas in Wild With All Regrets Owen effectively conveys the emotions of a hopeless soldier, through the development and progression of thought in ‘Wild With All Regrets’. He uses various parallel trains of thought simultaneously, such as the past,...

Introduction My report explores the horrors of war across a range of war poems by examining the dehumanisation of the young soldiers in World War I and how war affects their families and society. The poems I chose to use were Anthem for Doomed Youth,...

For the Ancient Greeks, the concept of love was divided into six different categories: in particular, eros represented the idea of sexual passion and desire. While current societies tend to glorify this variety of romantic love, Greek culture viewed eros as something potentially dangerous; such...

In “On My Songs”, Wilfred Owen gives us an intellectual insight into the emotion of loneliness through the eyes of a young man, newly thrown into the world out of the arms of his loving mother. Owen also tells us of his idolisation of the...

The poems Disabled by Wilfred Owen and ‘Out, out by Robert Frost were written 1917 and 1916. the poems were both written with the theme of loss and adolescent mistakes prominently featured throughout this piece of poetry. Wilfred Owen was an English poet, well known...

Death has been a prominent theme across literature, with its countless interpretations showcasing the diverse ways it has influenced different authors. Thomas Hardy’s novel The Mayor of Casterbridge is described by Hardy as “The life and death of a man of character”, and commences as...

Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Disabled’ concerns a young soldier who returns from the Great War suffering terrible injuries. The title of the poem is significant in creating a sense of pathos as it makes clear that the theme of loss will be explored throughout. Robert Frost’s...

In his recent study of the relationship between poetry and warfare, The Poetry of War, James Anderson Winn writes of the war poet’s ability to “convey, often in the same line or stanza, both the intensity of love between men of arms and the powers...

When “Sweet and Proper” Turns Sour “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poem written by Wilfred Owen that describes the horrors of World War I through the senses of a soldier. Owen uses extreme, harsh imagery to accurately describe how the war became all the...

A key conflict that both Owen and Sherriff explore in their literature is that many soldiers may experience ambivalent feelings towards their duty to fight for their country and their instinct to escape danger. In ‘Journey’s End’, Sherriff portrays this through the character of Hibbert...