Or the haunting Anthem For Doomed Youth with its opening lines: ‘What passing bells for these who die as cattle? Those words, from Dulce Et Decorum Est, describe the choking horror of a gas attack and expose ‘The old lie Dulce et Decorum est, Pro patria mori (How sweet and honourable it is to die for one’s country)’. ‘Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time’. 'Gas! Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling, One hundred years later, his lines are still compelling: The poetic reputation of Lieutenant Wilfred Owen of the Manchester Regiment is such that his influence has filtered deep into the national psyche so that for many people, their understanding of the events of 1914-1918 is gleaned from a small body of no more than 40 ‘war poems’ written by Owen. The words were the offspring of the Great War, a conflict that gave the nation Armistice Day, its Cenotaph, the poppy, street shrines, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission… and soldier-poets. Today at 11 o’clock, the nation will pause to remember the sacrifice of her sons and daughters from all wars throughout the past century, and Britons will unite to reaffirm that we will ‘never forget’.Īsked what will never be forgotten, the most frequent answer is ‘sacrifice and futility’. Wilfred Owen may have been a far more controversial character than the heroic figure of popular imagination
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