Tag Archives: Wilfred Owen

A War Hero Who Derided Memorials

World War I poet Sassoon lambasts those who think that war memorials pay off the debt to those who gave their lives.

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Wanted: Teachers, Not Martyrs

Some say teachers should, like soldiers, should put their lives on the line. This A.E. Housman poem brings up the question of whether even soldiers should do so when there sacrifice will be meaningless.

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There Watched I for the Dead

In Owen’s “Unreturning,” our poem for Memorial Day, the poet excoriates those who use religion to justify warfare.

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Vets in WWI Documentary Do Not Age

Tuesday Last night Julia and I watched Peter Jackson’s extraordinary documentary about World War I in which he applied filmmaker’s magic to archival footage to create a sense of immediacy. By brightening dark shots and darkening overexposed ones, erasing scratches, evening out movement (World War I film was shot with hand-cranked cameras), turning long-shots into […]

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Wilfred Owen and the Hell of War

In “Mental Cases” Warren describes, as a nightmare, veterans suffering from PTSD and other war-related mental illnesses.

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Mourning the Mouthless Dead

Charles Hamilton Sorley, killed early in World War I, penned anti-war poetry that anticipated Wilfred Owen.

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Memorial Day: Anthem for Doomed Youth

With Memorial Day, there is the danger that we will romanticize the deaths of the fallen rather than face up to the full tragedy. This tension can be seen in a number of World War I poems, some of which romanticize the fallen while others dwell on the absurdity of their deaths.

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Soldier, Rest, Thy Warfare O’er

In “Soldier Rest,” Sir Walter Scott captures how inviting death can look to those caught up in battle’s throes.

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Whitman’s Poem a Lesson for War Hawks

In “The Wound-Binder,” Walt Whitman refuses to glorify war and only shows its bloody aftermath–a good thing to remember on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s final day.

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