andy fisher's List: Wilfred Owen

• This is a similar theme to “Lament” by F.S Flint
• stark, plain modernist language
• diction

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• book called War Poetry, edited by Christopher Martin
• 'The Poems of Wilfred Owen', edited by Jon Stallworthy
• I've got to say that what has helped me analyse his poetry the best is reading  his biography. I have an excellent one, by Dominic Hibberd
• You get to understand the poetry so much better if you know its context - for  example, the original readers would immediately have recognised the phrase,  'dulce et decorum est pro patria mori'

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• bitterness and irony
• Petrarchian sonnet
• octave followed by a sestet
• contrast is between the visible (rather than aural) aspects of the burial rite  and the various signs of quiet grieving among the dead soldiers
• The poem"'"s effect

  • 'effect' is very important in the exam - you must not just identify WHAT owen does but WHY he does it - the effect on the reader
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• The repetition of a stressed open vowel followed by the sound of the letter n in  line 2 ('"'only,'"' '"'monstrous,'"' '"'anger,'"' '"'guns'"') mimics the steady,  regular thundering of the heavy guns

  • nice example of really close analysis - remember to stay focused at word level and then expand to make broader statements about how these accumulate to have a met-effect on the reader
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• The mood throughout these lines is elegaic, their solemn lyricism enhanced by  the effective use of conventional devices such as alliteration, assonance and  internal rhyme (the repeated '"'sh'"' and hard g in line 11; the stressed  plosives of '"'pallor,'"' '"'brows,'"' '"'be,'"' and '"'pall'"' in line 12; the  repeated '"'er'"' of '"'their flowers'"' and '"'tender-'"' in line 13; and  finally, the repeated stressed d of line 14).
  

  • Great stuff - really good example of terminology used appropriately to further an argument or opinion
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• While the sonnet is basically Petrarchan in form (divided into octave and  sestet), Owen also incorporates the strong closure of the Shakespearean form of  the sonnet by working rhyming couplets into the sestet.
• '"'Pity'"' is for Owen never condescending or detached:
• The poem has been read as a reply to Rupert Brooke"'"s 1914 sonnets, especially  the two entitled '"'The Dead,'"'

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