Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced by his mentor Siegfried Sassoon and stood in contrast to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously – are "Dulce et Decorum est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility", "Spring Offensive" and "Strange Meeting". Owen was killed in action on 4 November 1918, a week before the war's end, at the age of 25.
"Dulce et Decorum est" is a poem written by Wilfred Owen during World War I, and published posthumously in 1920. Its Latin title is from a verse written by the Roman poet Horace: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. In English, this means "it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country". The poem is one of Owen's most renowned works; it is known for its horrific imagery and its condemnation of war. It was drafted at Craiglockhart in the first half of October 1917 and later revised, probably at Scarborough, but possibly at Ripon, between January and March 1918. The earliest known manuscript is dated 8 October 1917 and is addressed to the poet's mother, Susan Owen, with the note "Here is a gas poem done yesterday ."
Norman Alexander MacCaig DLitt was a Scottish poet and teacher. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.
Jessie Pope was an English poet, writer, and journalist, who remains best known for her patriotic, motivational poems published during World War I. Wilfred Owen wrote his 1917 poem Dulce et Decorum est to Pope, whose literary reputation has faded into relative obscurity as those of war poets such as Owen and Siegfried Sassoon have grown.
Pararhyme is a half-rhyme in which there is vowel variation within the same consonant pattern.
Jon Howie Stallworthy, was a British literary critic and poet. He was Professor of English at the University of Oxford from 1992 to 2000, and Professor Emeritus in retirement. He was also a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, from 1986, where he was twice acting president. From 1977 to 1986, he was the John Wendell Anderson Professor of English at Cornell University.
"Insensibility" is a poem written by Wilfred Owen during the First World War which explores the effect of warfare on soldiers, and the long- and short-term psychological effects that it has on them. The poem's title refers to the fact that the soldiers have lost the ability to feel due to the horrors which they faced on the Western Front during the First World War.
"Mental Cases" is one of Wilfred Owen's more graphic poems. It describes war-torn men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as shell shock. Owen based the poem on his experience of Craiglockhart Military Hospital, near Edinburgh, where he was invalided in the summer of 1917 with neurasthenia, and became the patient of Dr A.J. Brock. Using imagery of death and violence, Owen presents a chilling portrait of men haunted by their experiences.
John William Dominic Hibberd FRSL was an English freelance author, academic and broadcaster, best known for his biographies of the poets Wilfred Owen and Harold Monro and his collections of First World War poetry. He was an Honorary Fellow of the War Poets Association and contributed numerous articles to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
William Harold Owen was the younger brother and biographer of the English poet and soldier, Wilfred Owen. He was born at the home of his paternal grandparents in Canon Street, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, where his parents and older siblings then lodged before his father moved on promotion to a station master's post at Birkenhead in 1898.
Sarah Maguire was a British poet, translator and broadcaster.
"Futility" is a poem written by Wilfred Owen, one of the most renowned poets of World War I. The poem was written in May 1918 and published as no. 153 in The Complete Poems and Fragments. The poem is well known for its departure from Owen's famous style of including disturbing and graphic images in his work; the poem instead has a more soothing, somewhat light-hearted feel to it in comparison. A previous secretary of the Wilfred Owen Association argues that the bitterness in Owen's other poems "gives place to the pity that characterises his finest work". "Futility" details an event where a group of soldiers attempts to revive an unconscious soldier by moving him into the warm sunlight on a snowy meadow. However, the "kind old sun" cannot help the soldier – he has died.
"Wild With All Regrets" is a poem by Wilfred Owen. It deals with the atrocities of World War I.
"At a Calvary near the Ancre" is a poem by Wilfred Owen on the Ancre, a tributary of the Somme. It was the scene of two notable battles in 1916. The poem is composed of three quatrains with rhyme scheme ABAB.
"Apologia Pro Poemate Meo" is a poem by Wilfred Owen. It deals with the atrocities of World War I. The title means "in defence of my poetry" and is often viewed as a rebuttal to a remark in Robert Graves' letter "for God's sake cheer up and write more optimistically - the war's not ended yet but a poet should have a spirit above wars."
"Strange Meeting" is a poem by Wilfred Owen. It deals with the atrocities of World War I. The poem was written sometime in 1918 and was published in 1919 after Owen's death. The poem is narrated by a soldier who goes to the underworld to escape the hell of the battlefield and there he meets the enemy soldier he killed the day before.
"Miners" is a poem by Wilfred Owen. He wrote the poem in Scarborough in January 1918, a few weeks after leaving Craiglockhart War Hospital where he had been recovering from shell-shock. Owen wrote the poem in direct response to the Minnie Pit Disaster in which 156 people died.
With an Identity Disc is a poem written by English poet Wilfred Owen. The poem was drafted on 23 March 1917.
"A Cradle Song" is a poem written by William Blake in 1789, as part of his book Songs of Innocence.
Poems was a quarto volume of poetry by Wilfred Owen published posthumously by Chatto and Windus in 1920. Owen had been killed on 4 November 1918. It has been described as "perhaps the finest volume of anti-war poetry to emerge from the War".
