Wilfred Owen and his Pity of War :: Wilfred Owen Poems Poetry War Literature Essays

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