Details Appertaining To Books The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen
| Title | : | The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen |
| Author | : | Wilfred Owen |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | New Directions Book |
| Pages | : | Pages: 192 pages |
| Published | : | January 17th 1965 by New Directions (first published 1918) |
| Categories | : | Poetry. Classics. War. World War I. Fiction |
Wilfred Owen
Paperback | Pages: 192 pages Rating: 4.34 | 3336 Users | 121 Reviews
Rendition Concering Books The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen
I make no apology for starting with one of Owen’s more well-known poems Dulce Et Decorum Est:Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
The title is from Horace: It is sweet and right to die for your country.
This collection includes Owen’s pre-war poems and lots of fragments of poems. It is easy to see that the really powerful standout poems are all war poems; there is a vast difference between these poems and his early work, hardly surprising. Most of Owen’s poems were published posthumously and those that were published were in an In-house magazine at Craiglockhart hospital. There is a memorial piece at the end by Edmund Blunden written in 1931 which contains extracts from his letters and is fascinating as it shows some of the ways his thought was developing. The passion and compassion of Owen towards the suffering and disenchanted stands out. Owen understands the men he is with; he understands soldiers and their role and he is angry on their behalf with those in power and those who criticise from the side-lines:
except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful
dark of hell,
Whose world is but the trembling
of a flare,
And heaven but as the highway for a shell.
You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mind. These men are worth
Your tears: you are not worth their merriment.
Owen’s letters show how his political thought was developing in a pacifist direction and he says that his conception of Christianity was incompatible with pure patriotism. He does not shirk addressing difficult issues including the effect of war on mental health in the poem “Mental Cases” and placing blame where he thinks it lies:
Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues wicked?
Stroke on stroke of pain, — but what slow panic,
Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?
— These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.
Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.
Always they must see these things and hear them,
Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
Carnage incomparable and human squander
Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented
Back into their brains, because on their sense
Sunlight seems a bloodsmear; night comes blood-black;
Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh
— Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
— Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
Pawing us who dealt them war and madness
This could easily become a run through of the poems; they are now well known and much studied and still retain their power. If you haven’t read them, do have a look, but I’ll sign off this review with 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.
Particularize Books Supposing The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen
| Original Title: | Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen |
| ISBN: | 0811201325 (ISBN13: 9780811201322) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Oswestry,1893(United Kingdom) University of London,1910(United Kingdom) Bordeaux,1913(France) …more Sambre-Oise Canal,1918(France) Monroe, North Carolina,1997(United States) …less |
Rating Appertaining To Books The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen
Ratings: 4.34 From 3336 Users | 121 ReviewsComment On Appertaining To Books The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen
This slim volume is a real treasure house of deeply felt poetic expression. Wilfred Owen died young in combat, but left behind enough verse to qualify him as one of the true great poets of the English language. Even some of his fragments (such as "All Sounds have Been as Music") are brilliant, and his command of rhyme, rhythm, and vocabulary is second-to-none. Outside of John Keats and Clark Ashton Smith, Owen is without a doubt one of my favorite poets, and this comprehensive collection, whichUmpteenth re-read of some of the most powerful poetry ever written and a big reason I am a committed pacifist since I first read this collection as a child.
I've always been interested in the literature of World War I. I knew Wilfred Owen was a poet I wanted to get to know better. The Introduction to this collection provides a great background to Owen's life and work. Immediately following are Owen's war poems. These are the pieces that anyone who is interested in his writing are in it for. These are not only his most famous; they are not only his best; but they are pretty much the only ones worth a second reading. Owen's war poems are mature and
I make no apology for starting with one of Owens more well-known poems Dulce Et Decorum Est:Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!An
Short book, but excellent. It has 24 of Wilfred Owen's poems. Two of the poems show alternates he had written. Very interesting. I love Owen's work. There's no sugar-coating war and the things he saw. All of the works make you feel like you're there in the trenches, living the horrors with him. All of the poems in this book are stupendous. My favorites, though, are: Apologia pro Poemate Meo Mental CasesArms and the BoyDulce et Decorum estThe ChancesA Terre (or Wild with all Regrets)
Too real to stand much, the truth of war untold is.
Grim and miserable, like all the other WW1 poets, but more relatable than some of the others.
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