Exploring the Poetry and Life of Wilfred Owen

 
Owen
War Poetry
 
Anthem for Doomed Youth
 
Starter activities
 
1.
What anthem (representative song) should
there be for today’s teenagers? Eg choose a
suitable pop/hip-hop song? Why choose it?
2.
How would you describe teenagers today?
Lost? Happy? Worried? Anxious? What
adjective would you choose?
3.
What songs are suitable for funerals?
4.
What songs/noises/things would you
definitely think wouldn’t be good?
 
Learning Intentions
 
To learn about how and why a poet uses
extended metaphors in his poems.
To learn about the contexts of Wilfred
Owen’s poetry.
To learn how a poet creates a atmosphere
of horror and pity
 
The Context of the poem
 
This was the “break-through” poem for Wilfred
Owen.
At the beginning of the war, Owen dreamed of
being a Romantic poet. He was teaching in France
and returned to enlist in 1915.
After training in Romford in 1916, he was sent out
to the front in the new year.
He was only a few months on the front but it shook
him to the core: he captured a German dug-out,
saw men die horribly and one go blind from gas
(see The Sentry and Dulce Et Decorum)
 
Meeting Sassoon
 
Owen was put in a mental hospital in
Edinburgh, Scotland called Craiglockhart. It
was an enlightened place.
There he met Siegfried Sassoon, a famous
poet who’d been put in the mental hospital for
protesting against the war.
Sassoon and Owen’s psychiatrist
encouraged him to start writing poetry again.
Until then Owen’s poetry had mainly been
very “romantic”, all about nature…
 
Owen’s obsessions
 
Religion. His mother, who he was devoted to,
was very religious, but Owen rejected religion
after a bad experience as an assistant to a
Vicar in Oxford before the war. A double
funeral of a mother and her four-year-old
daughter shook him to the core.
Death.
Nature.
Young men. Owen was almost certainly gay
as was Sassoon.
Poetry. The music and texture of words…
 
Mental Hospital
 
What do you think
the content of the
poem will be?
 
What words from the
poem do you think
are most significant?
 
Wilfred Owen
One of his most famous
poems is called
 
 
Anthem for
doomed
youth
Task - in pairs:
 
What
 do these words
mean?
What
 do you think the
poem is going to be
about?
Ext: Why 
do you think
he chose them?
 
Read the first stanza (paragraph) in your
groups and try to work out what you think the
poem is about.
 
How would you 
summarise
 the 
message
?
T
O
P
I
C
/
 
T
H
E
M
E
/
 
T
O
N
E
 
Difficult vocabulary
 
Notes for students
Anthem:1. A rousing or uplifting song identified with a
particular group, body, or cause.
2. A song officially adopted by a country as an
expression of national identity.
Passing-bells: a bell rung to announce a death or
funeral.
Hasty: quick, hurried
Orisons: prayers
Choirs: note the connection to Keats’ To Autumn, l.27:
‘Then in wailful choice the small gnats mourn…”
 
 
Difficult vocabulary
 
Mockeries: Owen had been religious but now
felt religion was a “mockery” of life and felt
the ceremonies of religious (prayers, bells,
choirs) were mockeries of life.
Demented = completely mad
Bugles = wind instruments played at funerals
or solemn occasions
Shires = country districts. Millions of young
men from the country died in the 1
st
 WW.
 
Difficult Vocabulary
 
“Speed them all” = “Help them go quickly to
heaven.”
Pallor: Pale colour
Pall: A cloth spread over a coffin, hearse, or tomb.
Line 14 Binyon’s ‘For The Fallen’ is important
here: “At the going down of the sun and in the
morning/We will remember them.” The drawing
of blinds in a house was common when there had
been a death…
 
Sounds
 
1.
Before we look in detail at this difficult poem,
underline all the sounds in it!
2.
Can you guess what it’s about? Try your
hardest!
BIG POINT: the poem makes a long comparison
between WHAT should be the song for our young
people, and WHAT is. The poem is as much about
what is NOT happening as what IS happening.
What is not happening?
 
Key things to know about a poem…
 
What it is about…you must understand it
fully…
What techniques a poet uses to achieve
certain effects…
The possible contexts of a poem…
 
An Elegy
 
This poem is a lament for the dead…
Why is the youth “doomed”? Doomed to die;
doomed to madness; doomed to
unhappiness…
 
Structure and Form
 
This poem takes the “form” of a sonnet – usually
love poems or with a religious focus. What parts
of the poem focus upon religious issues and what
parts suggest love? What is the main topic of the
poem?
 
Sonnets often have the structure of having eight
lines (the octet) where the main point is set out,
and then six lines which conclude the poem (the
sestet). Is this the case here?
 
Context
 
This poem was written in a ‘mental hospital’ for
shell-shock victims, Craiglockhart, Edinburgh, in
Sept-Oct 1917. Siegfried Sassoon helped a lot
with the composition of the poem.
What clues are there in the poem that it’s written
by someone very “disillusioned” by the war?
Is this poem “patriotic”? Where do the poet’s
sympathies lie?
 
The Pity of war
 
Owen’s great theme was the “pity of war”.
What images suggest the “pity of war” in this
poem and why?
 
Tasks
 
Read the annotated poem
Highlight the techniques and key points
Add notes about any details you think have
not been picked out in annotated poems: e.g.
what the poem is about; the different
techniques the poet uses and WHY he uses
them; speculate about WHY he might have
written the poem; note down your PERSONAL
responses, your thoughts and feelings.
 
 
Questions about meaning and poetic
effects
 
1.
Think of three questions to ask about the poem
yourself…
2.
Line 1: what is the effect of the simile that says
the soldiers “die as cattle”?
3.
Write out line 1 in your own words, explaining it
clearly.
4.
The rest of the “octet” (first eight lines of the
sonnet) is a reply to the question in line one.
Explain these lines in THREE sentences.
5.
What do the soldiers NOT have as their funeral
song?
 
Questions About meaning and Poetic
effects
 
6.
Line 9. Another question. What does this
question mean?
7.
The rest of the sestet (six lines that conclude
a sonnet) are a reply. What do these lines
mean? Explain them in your own words,
using selected quotation.
8.
The octet is full of noise whereas the sestet
has images connected with silence. Why is
this do you think?
 
Reviewing the whole poem
 
9.
Why is it important to understand the
contexts of this poem?
10.
What do you think of the poem overall?
What makes it interesting and dramatic?
11.
Owen’s great theme was the “pity of war”…In
what ways does this poem explore this
theme? (Classic essay question!)
 
An Elegy
 
This poem is a lament for the dead…
Why is the youth “doomed”? Doomed to die;
doomed to madness; doomed to
unhappiness…
 
Structure and Form
 
This poem takes the “form” of a sonnet – usually
love poems or with a religious focus. What parts
of the poem focus upon religious issues and what
parts suggest love? What is the main topic of the
poem?
 
Sonnets often have the structure of having eight
lines (the octet) where the main point is set out,
and then six lines which conclude the poem (the
sestet). Is this the case here?
 
Context
 
This poem was written in a ‘mental hospital’ for
shell-shock victims, Craiglockhart, Edinburgh, in
Sept-Oct 1917. Siegfried Sassoon helped a lot
with the composition of the poem.
What clues are there in the poem that it’s written
by someone very “disillusioned” by the war?
Is this poem “patriotic”? Where do the poet’s
sympathies lie?
 
The Pity of war
 
Owen’s great theme was the “pity of war”.
What images suggest the “pity of war” in this
poem and why?
 
Tasks
 
Annotate the poem, making sure you note: what
the poem is about; the different techniques the
poet uses and WHY he uses them; speculate
about WHY he might have written the poem;
note down your PERSONAL responses, your
thoughts and feelings.
 
EXTENSION ACTIVITIES:
Write your own creative response – an anthem
for today’s youth: a poem, a story, a picture, an
article, music, a slide-show of related images.
 
 
Links with other poems
 
Other poems powerfully descriptive poems
about the horror of war are relevant: Futility
Strange Meeting also discusses the young men
who go to war.
Spring Offensive and The Sentry illustrate the
slaughter
 
Structure and Form
 
 
How would you describe the layout of this
poem? Is it bouncy and snappy?
S
T
R
U
C
T
U
R
E
 
 
1 stanza
15 lines
10 syllables per line
 
abab, cdcd, effe, gg
S
T
R
U
C
T
U
R
E
 
Sonnet
 
A sonnet is a very 
traditional
 poem form
Shakespearean sonnet
It is very 
regular and serious
 – even the syllables
have to be exactly right
The change of rhyme makes the 
last two lines
stand out more
This means it favours serious or thoughtful
subject matter
S
T
R
U
C
T
U
R
E
 
www.englishteaching.co.uk
 
Re-drafting the poem
 
www.englishteaching.co.uk
 
Re-drafting the poem
www.englishteaching.co.uk
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Why did Wilfred Owen choose this simile to describe the men?
Why did Wilfred Owen choose this simile to describe the men?
 
Wilfred Owen uses a simile to describe the soldiers dying in battle.
 
He writes that the soldiers “die as cattle”.
 
This simile is effective because it shows that Owen feels that the
men were dying without dignity and that the amount of men dying
was like the number of cattle being slaughtered.
 
www.englishteaching.co.uk
Funeral / Death /
Mourning Images
 
‘choirs’
 
‘flowers’
 
‘sad shires’
 
‘bugles calling’
 
‘pall’
 
The poem contains
many images related
to funerals, death
and mourning.
Complete the bubble
map by adding all of
the funeral images
that you can find.
 
www.englishteaching.co.uk
Funeral / Death /
Mourning Images
 
‘bells’
 
‘orisons’
 
‘prayers’
 
‘mourning’
 
‘choirs’
 
‘sad shires’
 
‘bugles calling’
 
‘candles’
 
‘holy glimmers of good-byes’
 
‘flowers’
 
‘pall’
 
‘drawing down of blinds’
 
www.englishteaching.co.uk
 
How does Owen use death imagery in his
poem?
 
Wilfred Owen uses many images of death, funerals and
mourning in the poem ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’.
Choose 2 examples from the bubble map
Comment on the effect of your choice of examples.  Why did
Owen choose to use these images?  What do they make the
reader think of?
 
www.englishteaching.co.uk
 
Rhetorical Questions
 
Rhetorical questions are questions that do not require an answer.
They are written to make the reader think about the topic being
addressed.
 
He wrote: ‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ and
He wrote: ‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ and
‘What candles may be held to speed them all?’
‘What candles may be held to speed them all?’
 
How does Owen use rhetorical questions in ‘Anthem for Doomed
Youth’?
 
Owen uses rhetorical questions at the start of each of the two
stanzas of the poem ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’.
 
Your turn!  Why are these two questions effective?  What do they
make the reader think about / evaluate?  What do they tell the
reader about the poet’s personal point of view?
 
Learning objective: To review how a poet’s life affects the
composition of their writing.
 
What does Wilfred Owen’s poetry
reveal about his attitudes to war?
 
In the poetry of Wilfred Owen he uses……….to
emphasise…
 
The technique of……..is used to show……….
 
Throughout [poem title] Owen uses…..to argue that…..
 
The rhyme scheme allows the reader to…..
 
It can be argued that Owen…..
 
Learning objective: To review how a poet’s life affects the
composition of their writing.
 
Peer assessment
 
WWW – What element of their analysis is
effective?
 
EBI – How can the analysis be improved?
 
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Delve into the profound journey of poet Wilfred Owen, from his dreams of Romanticism to the harsh realities of war. Encounter his mental struggles, collaborations with Siegfried Sassoon, and the deep-seated themes of religion, death, and nature in his works. Uncover the powerful impact of Owen's experiences on his poetic expressions, shedding light on the context, obsessions, and significant moments that shaped his artistry.


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  1. Owen War Poetry Anthem for Doomed Youth

  2. Starter activities 1. What anthem (representative song) should there be for today s teenagers? Eg choose a suitable pop/hip-hop song? Why choose it? 2. How would you describe teenagers today? Lost? Happy? Worried? Anxious? What adjective would you choose? 3. What songs are suitable for funerals? 4. What songs/noises/things would you definitely think wouldn t be good?

  3. Learning Intentions To learn about how and why a poet uses extended metaphors in his poems. To learn about the contexts of Wilfred Owen s poetry. To learn how a poet creates a atmosphere of horror and pity

  4. The Context of the poem This was the break-through poem for Wilfred Owen. At the beginning of the war, Owen dreamed of being a Romantic poet. He was teaching in France and returned to enlist in 1915. After training in Romford in 1916, he was sent out to the front in the new year. He was only a few months on the front but it shook him to the core: he captured a German dug-out, saw men die horribly and one go blind from gas (see The Sentry and Dulce Et Decorum)

  5. Meeting Sassoon Owen was put in a mental hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland called Craiglockhart. It was an enlightened place. There he met Siegfried Sassoon, a famous poet who d been put in the mental hospital for protesting against the war. Sassoon and Owen s psychiatrist encouraged him to start writing poetry again. Until then Owen s poetry had mainly been very romantic , all about nature

  6. Owens obsessions Religion. His mother, who he was devoted to, was very religious, but Owen rejected religion after a bad experience as an assistant to a Vicar in Oxford before the war. A double funeral of a mother and her four-year-old daughter shook him to the core. Death. Nature. Young men. Owen was almost certainly gay as was Sassoon. Poetry. The music and texture of words

  7. Mental Hospital

  8. What do you think the content of the poem will be? What words from the poem do you think are most significant?

  9. Wilfred Owen One of his most famous poems is called Task - in pairs: What do these words mean? What do you think the poem is going to be about? Ext: Why do you think he chose them? Anthem for doomed youth

  10. Read the first stanza (paragraph) in your groups and try to work out what you think the poem is about. How would you summarise the message?

  11. Difficult vocabulary Notes for students Anthem:1. A rousing or uplifting song identified with a particular group, body, or cause. 2. A song officially adopted by a country as an expression of national identity. Passing-bells: a bell rung to announce a death or funeral. Hasty: quick, hurried Orisons: prayers Choirs: note the connection to Keats To Autumn, l.27: Then in wailful choice the small gnats mourn

  12. Difficult vocabulary Mockeries: Owen had been religious but now felt religion was a mockery of life and felt the ceremonies of religious (prayers, bells, choirs) were mockeries of life. Demented = completely mad Bugles = wind instruments played at funerals or solemn occasions Shires = country districts. Millions of young men from the country died in the 1st WW.

  13. Difficult Vocabulary Speed them all = Help them go quickly to heaven. Pallor: Pale colour Pall: A cloth spread over a coffin, hearse, or tomb. Line 14 Binyon s For The Fallen is important here: At the going down of the sun and in the morning/We will remember them. The drawing of blinds in a house was common when there had been a death

  14. Sounds 1. Before we look in detail at this difficult poem, underline all the sounds in it! 2. Can you guess what it s about? Try your hardest! BIG POINT: the poem makes a long comparison between WHAT should be the song for our young people, and WHAT is. The poem is as much about what is NOT happening as what IS happening. What is not happening?

  15. Key things to know about a poem What it is about you must understand it fully What techniques a poet uses to achieve certain effects The possible contexts of a poem

  16. An Elegy This poem is a lament for the dead Why is the youth doomed ? Doomed to die; doomed to madness; doomed to unhappiness

  17. Structure and Form This poem takes the form of a sonnet usually love poems or with a religious focus. What parts of the poem focus upon religious issues and what parts suggest love? What is the main topic of the poem? Sonnets often have the structure of having eight lines (the octet) where the main point is set out, and then six lines which conclude the poem (the sestet). Is this the case here?

  18. Context This poem was written in a mental hospital for shell-shock victims, Craiglockhart, Edinburgh, in Sept-Oct 1917. Siegfried Sassoon helped a lot with the composition of the poem. What clues are there in the poem that it s written by someone very disillusioned by the war? Is this poem patriotic ? Where do the poet s sympathies lie?

  19. The Pity of war Owen sgreat theme was the pity of war . What images suggest the pity of war in this poem and why?

  20. Tasks Read the annotated poem Highlight the techniques and key points Add notes about any details you think have not been picked out in annotated poems: e.g. what the poem is about; the different techniques the poet uses and WHY he uses them; speculate about WHY he might have written the poem; note down your PERSONAL responses, your thoughts and feelings.

  21. Questions about meaning and poetic effects 1. Think of three questions to ask about the poem yourself 2. Line 1: what is the effect of the simile that says the soldiers die as cattle ? 3. Write out line 1 in your own words, explaining it clearly. 4. The rest of the octet (first eight lines of the sonnet) is a reply to the question in line one. Explain these lines in THREE sentences. 5. What do the soldiers NOT have as their funeral song?

  22. Questions About meaning and Poetic effects 6. Line 9. Another question. What does this question mean? 7. The rest of the sestet (six lines that conclude a sonnet) are a reply. What do these lines mean? Explain them in your own words, using selected quotation. 8. The octet is full of noise whereas the sestet has images connected with silence. Why is this do you think?

  23. Reviewing the whole poem 9. Why is it important to understand the contexts of this poem? 10.What do you think of the poem overall? What makes it interesting and dramatic? 11.Owen sgreat theme was the pity of war In what ways does this poem explore this theme? (Classic essay question!)

  24. An Elegy This poem is a lament for the dead Why is the youth doomed ? Doomed to die; doomed to madness; doomed to unhappiness

  25. Structure and Form This poem takes the form of a sonnet usually love poems or with a religious focus. What parts of the poem focus upon religious issues and what parts suggest love? What is the main topic of the poem? Sonnets often have the structure of having eight lines (the octet) where the main point is set out, and then six lines which conclude the poem (the sestet). Is this the case here?

  26. Context This poem was written in a mental hospital for shell-shock victims, Craiglockhart, Edinburgh, in Sept-Oct 1917. Siegfried Sassoon helped a lot with the composition of the poem. What clues are there in the poem that it s written by someone very disillusioned by the war? Is this poem patriotic ? Where do the poet s sympathies lie?

  27. The Pity of war Owen sgreat theme was the pity of war . What images suggest the pity of war in this poem and why?

  28. Tasks Annotate the poem, making sure you note: what the poem is about; the different techniques the poet uses and WHY he uses them; speculate about WHY he might have written the poem; note down your PERSONAL responses, your thoughts and feelings. EXTENSION ACTIVITIES: Write your own creative response an anthem for today s youth: a poem, a story, a picture, an article, music, a slide-show of related images.

  29. Links with other poems Other poems powerfully descriptive poems about the horror of war are relevant: Futility Strange Meeting also discusses the young men who go to war. Spring Offensive and The Sentry illustrate the slaughter

  30. Structure and Form How would you describe the layout of this poem? Is it bouncy and snappy? How many . 1.Stanzas does the poem have? 2.Lines does the poem have? 3.Syllables does each line have? 4. What is the rhyme scheme?

  31. 1 stanza 15 lines 10 syllables per line abab, cdcd, effe, gg

  32. Sonnet A sonnet is a very traditional poem form Shakespearean sonnet It is very regular and serious even the syllables have to be exactly right The change of rhyme makes the last two lines stand out more This means it favours serious or thoughtful subject matter

  33. Re-drafting the poem www.englishteaching.co.uk

  34. Re-drafting the poem www.englishteaching.co.uk

  35. What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Why did Wilfred Owen choose this simile to describe the men? P Wilfred Owen uses a simile to describe the soldiers dying in battle. E He writes that the soldiers die as cattle . Ee This simile is effective because it shows that Owen feels that the men were dying without dignity and that the amount of men dying was like the number of cattle being slaughtered. www.englishteaching.co.uk

  36. The poem contains many images related to funerals, death and mourning. bugles calling choirs sad shires Complete the bubble map by adding all of the funeral images that you can find. Funeral / Death / pall Mourning Images flowers www.englishteaching.co.uk

  37. bugles calling choirs holy glimmers of good-byes bells sad shires orisons Funeral / Death / pall prayers Mourning Images mourning flowers candles drawing down of blinds www.englishteaching.co.uk

  38. How does Owen use death imagery in his poem? P Wilfred Owen uses many images of death, funerals and mourning in the poem Anthem for Doomed Youth . E Choose 2 examples from the bubble map Ee Comment on the effect of your choice of examples. Why did Owen choose to use these images? What do they make the reader think of? www.englishteaching.co.uk

  39. Rhetorical Questions Rhetorical questions are questions that do not require an answer. They are written to make the reader think about the topic being addressed. How does Owen use rhetorical questions in Anthem for Doomed Youth ? P Owen uses rhetorical questions at the start of each of the two stanzas of the poem Anthem for Doomed Youth . He wrote: What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? and What candles may be held to speed them all? E Your turn! Why are these two questions effective? What do they make the reader think about / evaluate? What do they tell the reader about the poet s personal point of view? Ee www.englishteaching.co.uk

  40. Learning objective: To review how a poets life affects the composition of their writing. What does Wilfred Owen s poetry reveal about his attitudes to war? In the poetry of Wilfred Owen he uses .to In the poetry of Wilfred Owen he uses .to emphasise emphasise The technique of ..is used to show . The technique of ..is used to show . Throughout [poem title] Owen uses ..to argue that .. Throughout [poem title] Owen uses ..to argue that .. The rhyme scheme allows the reader to .. The rhyme scheme allows the reader to .. It can be argued that Owen .. It can be argued that Owen ..

  41. Learning objective: To review how a poets life affects the composition of their writing. Peer assessment WWW What element of their analysis is effective? EBI How can the analysis be improved?

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