Eng426 20th century english literature

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Wilfred Owen is arguably the youngest of all the war poets who lost his life at the war front a week to the end of the First World War. His poetry was known after his death and he is one of the renowned poets of the Twentieth Century English Literature. This unit will discuss his life and his poems “Anthem For Doomed Youth” and “1914”, and the themes and techniques he employed in the poems.

0. OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit you should be able to:

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  Discuss your impression of the war from the poems especially the poet’s view of the war.
  
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  Discuss the themes and techniques of war that you can find in the poem
  
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  Compare and contrast the poetry of W.B. Yeats and Wilfred Owen
  

0. MAINCONTENT

1. 
   Wilfred Owen
   

Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 and died in 1918. He attended Birkenhead Institute, Shrewbury Technical School and University of London. He developed his love for poetry at an early age. He was a devout Anglican in his early days but he later abandoned his religious zeal. He served in the British army in the First World War and was later diagnosed with shell shock after terrible encounters on the war front. In his poetry, after experiencing the war first hand, he painted the horror of the war in a bid to let civilians and the people who were not directly involved in the war see the terrible effects of the war on soldiers. Some of these poems are “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, “1914”, “Strange Meeting”, “Futility” and “Dulceet Decorum”. He is recognised as a war poet who depicted the war as a waste of lives and discouraged youths from being deceived by
the popular saying then that “it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for one’s country” - Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Birkerts Wilfred Owen also became one of the youths whose lives were cut short as a result of the war.

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