Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen 

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born on 18 March 1893 in Shropshire. He was a poet and a soldier. Wilfred Owen was the eldest son of the Thomas and Harriet Owen. He was an Anglican. During his school days, he was clever in studies. Wilfred passed the matriculation of the University of London. As the first career in life Wilfred worked as a teacher. In 1915, he was commissioned in the Manchester Regiment and was sent to the Front France at the end of same year. After periods at home, he returned to the front and paradoxically, was awarded the Military Cross.

Wilfred Owen was one of the leading poet of First World War. He wrote about war when he even at the battle field. Some of best works of him are,

·         Dulce et Decorum est

·         Insensibility

·         Anthem for Doomed Youth

·         Futility

·         Spring offensive

·         Strange Meeting    etc.

   

Wilfred Owen was killed in action shortly before the Armistice in November 1918. It was quite pathetic that Owen bade goodbye to his life at a very young age and he was killed one week before the Armistice, the agreement for the ceasefire was signed. After composing the poem, “Anthem for doomed youth” Wilfred Owen wrote a preface for it. It reads as follows:

 “My subject is war and the pity of war; The poetry is in the pity”

This is pathetic as well as ironic because the cruel war cost his life too.