His poems are rooted in the harrowing experience of a young officer in the trenches, who bears witness to the ordeal of his men. Wilfred Owen writes: 'The true poets must be truthful' (Draft Preface, 98). 5 Letter to Susan Owen, 25 February 1917.Ĥ Yet they are not tearful, but truthful.4 Letter to Susan Owen, 22 September 1918.They are 'elegies … in no sense consolatory' (Draft Preface, 98). His poems are first and foremost about agony, grief, distress, mourning and hopelessness. The scenes of pitiless chaos are closely linked with their pitiful or 'piteous' consequences on thoughts and feelings. 39).ģ By 'the pity of war' (Draft Preface, 98), Wilfred Owen means that war is both pitiless and pitiful. ( Insensibility, 32, l.40-41)Ģ The wise are the poets and prophets whose inner wounds remain forever sore: 'Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were' ( Strange Meeting, 35, l. Wilfred Owen remains in communion with the suffering:īlood over all our soul. In Insensibility, he curses 'dullards' who 'cease feeling' and 'make themselves immune to pity' ( Insensibility, 32, l. His poetry is the scream of a scorched soul thrown into the seething cauldron of war. What makes the originality of Wilfred Owen is his highly-strung sensitiveness. Every war poet possesses characteristics of his own: Siegfried Sassoon’s anger and bitterness are expressed through graphic descriptions and the vilipending of the Church, the Press, the Staff and war profiteers Edmund Blunden laments the wrecking of the countryside Isaac Rosenberg excels in blending fact and vision. 3 Pity is at the core of his poetry and makes it unique. The War Poems, edited and introduce (.)ġ In his draft preface to a collection of his war poems, 2 Wilfred Owen wrote: 'My subject is war, and the pity of war' (Wilfred Owen’s draft preface, 98). 3 All quotations from Wilfred Owen's poems are from Wilfred Owen.2 This project did not materialize as Wilfred Owen was killed on 4 November 1918.

Down and Out by Wilfred De'Ath