Description

The First World War, also known at that time as The Great War (on account of the fact that it was the first conflict involving countries from all over the globe), marked a watershed in the positive perception that most people had of ‘war’. The gruesome reality brought to light by those taking part in the armed conflict led many people to wise up to the fact that dying in a war was no longer a dulce et decorum (sweet and noble) idea, as they had been persuaded to believe by those at the helm. The nature of the war was such that not even literature could remain insensitive to the deep emotional distress experienced by so many people worldwide. This is the reason why so many English poets decided to take on the role of soldiers, in order to endow their poetry with a ‘first person taste’ of someone actively involved in the armed conflict. The term war poet, which came into currency during World War I, may be applied to all those English poets who fought in the Western front, and who wrote about their experiences of war. Most of these poets died during the war, most famously Rupert Brooke (1887-1915), Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) and Charles Sorley (1895-1915). Of all the previous poets, there is no doubt that only Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen have achieved legendary fame. The reason for such literary significance lies in both their premature death (Brooke: 28; Owen: 25) and in their deeply moving and emotive first person accounts of the experiences of war. There are, however, clear differences between both poets, at least as far as their approach to war is concerned. While Rubert Brooke’s poetry is imbued with a sense of patriotism and idealism, Wilfred Owen’s poetry oozes pessimism about the terrible carnage he was witnessing while fighting in the Western front. This might be explained by reference to the fact that Rupert Brooke died when the war was still in its early stages, and so morale amongst soldiers was very high, whereas Wilfred Owen had the grisly chance of being confronted with the gruesome reality that lies beneath the heoric notion of war. Probably due to the great doses of realism included in Owen’s poetry, I have decided to focus the present essay on Wilfred Owen’s life and poetry. In order to fulfil this purpose, first of all I will present the historical backdrop against which Wilfred Owen’s literary career developed (WWI). Then, I will provide a biographical account which, in a way, will lead to the final section of this paper, devoted to a literary analysis of the two most well-known poems by Wilfred Owen: Dulce et Decorum Est, and Strange Meeting.