This presentation focuses on the hollowness and horrors of the hostilities depicted in Wilfred Owen's poems. It discusses his famous works like Futility, Spring Offensive and 1914. The presentation also highlights the use of metaphors and similes in his poems to expose the pity and emptiness of wars. Subject: English Literature
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Running head: WILFRED OWEN AND WAR-POEMS WILFRED OWEN AND WAR-POEMS Name of the Student Name of the University Author note
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1WILFRED OWEN AND WAR POEMS My subject is War, and the Pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.” There is no doubt that a few would challenge the fame of Wilfred Owen, as the greatest writer of English war poetry. Since Owen was a soldier himself, his poetry mostly depicts the horrors and the pity of the war. The literary works of Wilfred Owen are immensely influenced by the works of Siegfried Sassoon who was also his mentor. This presentation will focus on the hollowness and horrors of the hostilities that has been depicted in his poems like The Futility, Spring Offensive and 1914. The poem “Futility” composed in May 1918 is one of the most well-known war poems of Owen till date. The poem published in The Complete Poems and Fragments, is celebrated for Owen’s detailed description of a soldier lying death in the battle field. The poem focuses on the fact that even the greatest source of life, the Sun has failed to nurture life in the body of the dead soldier. The poem highlights the atrocities of the warfare and expresses the irrationality of it as the poet says that wars are waged only to satisfy the selfish needs of the warmongers. Spring Offensive, a renowned poem of Wilfred Owen deals with the violence of the World War 1 and was composed in the year 1917 when a battle was charged in the month of April.
2WILFRED OWEN AND WAR POEMS The poem, Owen’s last complete poem is considered to be his finest composition and reflects the pathos and aftermath of the war. Spring Offensive, a reflective philosophy on war, commences with an ambiguous image against the backdrop of the season Spring. The title of the poem an oxymoron, suggests that “spring” and “offensive” cannot go together and hence the poem illustrates the ferocity and unnatural offense of war against nature. •1914, a sonnet by Wilfred Owen, is a poem composed on the evolution and development of civilization in terms of the seasons of the year. •The poet here compares the season Spring with the Greek civilization, the oldest civilization of the world which finds it fulfillment in the blooming summer that is compared with the Roman Empire. The poet compares the season Autumn with the period of Renaissance and finally concludeswith the First World War which he compared with the “Winter of the World”. •The poem is ornamented with metaphors and represents the concavity and the bloodshed that is related with the war. •The poem 1914 finishes with a note of melancholy and says that in the present world there exists only winter and the season spring still desire for the blooming of new life. •According to Wilfred Owen his poetry deals with the pity of the war. •Owen’s poems are mainly concerned with the horrors of the warfare and strongly protest against waging wars.
3WILFRED OWEN AND WAR POEMS •The poet Wilfred Owen, being a strong activist of warfare, aimed his poems to demolish the glorifying image of the warfare. •The prevalent structure in most of his poems, called the Slant Rhymed Couplets, describing a dead soldier, is absolutely relevant and plays a vital role in the poem which are set against the backdrop of the war. •Owen says that poems are the only source that can strongly reveal the reality and the truth about the war as it causes a huge loss to the nations of the world •The language used in the poems are plain and it contributes to the poignancy of the theme and plot of the poems: death and damage. •In most of the poems of Owen, there are use of metaphors and similes to expose the pity and emptiness of wars. •The poems of Owen are mostly his personal experiences from the World War 1 as he was a soldier himself. •However, Owen is mostly known for his use of half-rhyme that offers his poetry a cacophonous and provoking tone that shadows the persistent themes of his poetry. •Wilfred Owen died on 4thNovember in the year 1918 while waging a war near the village of Ors. •Wilfred Owen is mostly commemorated for his war-poems. •No other poet, in the modern world can bring out the hopelessness of the war and the reality related to it.
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4WILFRED OWEN AND WAR POEMS •Nature plays an important role in all the poems of Owen and is considered to be the primary source of life. •The use of imagery in all the poems intensifies the stark contrasts which illuminates that war is of no use and it brings no good to the nation and the only enemies that we have, are ourselves.
5WILFRED OWEN AND WAR POEMS Breen, J. ed., 2014. Wilfred Owen (Routledge Revivals): Selected Poetry and Prose. Routledge. Britten, B., Owen, W., Vishnevskai︠a︡, G., Pears, P., Fischer-Dieskau, D., Preston, S. and Britten, B., 2013. War requiem. Warner Classics. Goldensohn,L.,2012. DismantlingGlory:Twentieth-CenturySoldierPoetry.Columbia University Press. Johnston, J.H., 2015. English Poetry of the First World War. Princeton University Press. Stallworthy, J. and Owen, W., 2013. The Poems of Wilfred Owen. Random House. Stout, J.P., 2016. Coming Out of War: Poetry, Grieving, and the Culture of the World Wars. University of Alabama Press.