“what passing-bells for those who die as cattle?”
On the18th of March 1893, we welcomed Wilfred Owen, who was to become one of the greatest poet of World War one, sadly we lost him in action on the 4th of November 1918, exactly a week (almost to the hour) before the signing of the Armistice that ended the war.
“what
passing-bells for those who die as cattle?” lament
Wilfred Owen joined the army reluctantly. In 1913,
he moved to France to work as a language tutor before he moved back to England
two years later to enlist in the army. He joined the army as a patriotic
idealist with the aim to serve the British Expeditionary Force and get
first-hand experience of the suffering of soldiers in able to tell their story
through poetry.
His
poem "Dulce et Decorum est”
is Roman for, "it is sweet and proper to die for the father land” where he
combats the idea of patriotism. Owen’s poem is a sonnet that glorifies
fighting and dying for ones country at the start but challenges it towards the end. “His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;”
in this line, Owen alluded the devil, indicating the awfulness of war.
After training for the army, Owen was sent to fight
in the western front in January 1917. A tragic incident left Owen shell shocked
and hospitalized, making a turning point in his poetry career. A railway
embankment trapped Owen on its side for days with the remains of a popular
fellow officer, while he hid from a German artillery fire.
Shell shocks were misunderstood during that time.
The treatment given were electric shocks, the logic was that soldiers will find
terror in trenches preferable to the pain from electric shocks therefore would
feel better. Luckily for Owen, his officials evacuated him to Craiglockhart War
Hospital near Edinburgh, where he was given occupational therapy.
While
in recuperation, his therapist advised him to reflect his nightmares in writing as part of his therapy.
Owen shared his poem with Sassoon who put him through the right path of poetry. With Sassoon’s influence, Owen's poem style and concept became revolutionary. His poem revealed how soldiers used humour and anti-German feeling to cope with the distress of war.
Owen shared his poem with Sassoon who put him through the right path of poetry. With Sassoon’s influence, Owen's poem style and concept became revolutionary. His poem revealed how soldiers used humour and anti-German feeling to cope with the distress of war.
Owen
returned to the war front in August 1918.
“You
have fixed my life – however short” he wrote in his first letter to Sassoon
after he left Craiglockhart. Two months later, he won the Military Cross award
for bravery.
He also wrote home to Susan, his mother,
"I can see no excuse
for deceiving you about these last four days. I have suffered seventh hell. –I
have not been at the front. –I have been in front of it . . . we came to where
the trenches had been blown flat out and had to go over the top. It was of
course dark, too dark, and the ground was not mud, not sloppy mud, but an
octopus of sucking clay, three, four, and five feet deep, relieved only by
craters full of water . . ."
On the18th of March 1893, we welcomed Wilfred Owen, who
was to become one of the greatest poet of World War one, sadly we lost him in
action on the 4th of November 1918, exactly a week (almost to
the hour) before the signing of the Armistice that ended the war.
The news of his death must have hit his mother hard
because in his last letter to her, he assured her he was not “in
danger down here” and “if any, it will be over before [she] read these
lines.”
Owen's mother received the news of his death as the
church bells in Shrewsbury rang out in celebration.
He was buried at Ors communal in North France.
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
He was buried at Ors communal in North France.
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
If you could hear, at every
jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the
froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as
the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on
innocent tongues, —
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