Before taking the course "Contemporary Literature", I used think that poetry was just about love with all its faces. However, when we started studying the unit 2, Wilfred Owen's poems -that are "certainly the finest written by any English poet of the First War" (Day Lewis, 1963) - made me realize how wrong I was. Poetry can be heartbreakingly illustrative and Owen knew how to highlights the horrors of a war and the terrible events that he and his fellows faced. This heartrending topic was the reason why I decided to briefly analyze another of his poems, which talks about the death of the soldiers in the war.
(You can listen the poem read by Stephen Fry)
"Anthem For Doomed Youth"
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, - The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.
The title gives us the first cue to know what this poem is about. It could be infer that by using the word "anthem", Owen is trying to commemorate the lives of casualties in the war. So, ¿who are the "doomed youth"? The doomed youth are "the future of the nation", all those young soldiers that were convinced that fighting in the war for their countries was the most honorable act of patriotism. They were promised glory and acknowledgment, however, the only thing that many of them received was just a dreadful death.
In this poem, Owen seems to do a complain for how casualties' deaths are commemorated.
As we have seen in movies or read in books, in most of the cases, the soldiers' bodies are never given back to their families, sometimes, because these have not been found or just because it would be horrible to give a wife or a mother the mutilated body (or parts of it) of her husband or son. Thereby, their only passing-bells were the deafening noise of the gunshots and their souls were deprived from the funerals and prayers of their loved ones, with no pall and no flowers, just lying on mud among their dead fellows.
As Day Lewis said (1963) this poetry is not about heroes, "nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honor, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War." Thus, this poem is one more image that Owen give us about the horrors of the War and how these "men of glory" were forgotten in the battlefield, being remembered just by their loved ones, but not by their countries.
I hope you liked my entry and if you want you can leave your comments below :)
References
BBC POETRY - Unknown author. Retieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poems/anthem_for_doomed_youth.shtml
The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen, edited by C. Day Lewis (1963)
The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen, edited by C. Day Lewis (1963)
I think that the deaths of all those soldiers was not in vain since we all learned something from their tragedies; whether was the undeniable fact that War is a colossally stupid idea or that War only brings sorrow and despair.
ResponderEliminarFurthermore, I second the idea that you stated when saying that Owen was trying to complain rather than to honor the events of the war, because he was trying to show the world the true deadly colors of war. No Honor, no Glory only Death.
Although I do not agree when you say that those war-men have been forgotten. This is because we, due to their horrifying deaths, have learned the horrors of war. They did not die for nothing; they died to show us the hell war is.
And their silent voices were made noise through Owen’s writings.