`Anthem for Doomed Youth`

‘Anthem for Doomed
Youth’
What is the poem’s purpose?
Who is the poem’s audience?
What is the poem about?
What are the key themes?
‘Anthem for Doomed
Youth’
This is one of Owen’s best known poems. Its plan is
simple. With bitter irony, the first stanza translates
the pandemonium of battle into funeral rites for the
fallen. The second stanza continues the metaphor in
the quiet of a stricken English Village.
An anthem is usually a hymn to praise
or celebrate but in this bitterly ironic
title, Owen is criticising the praising of
War.
‘Anthem for
Doomed Youth’
You wouldn’t usually associate the youth with being doomed,
but these men were being sent to their deaths. Owen uses the
association of death and youth to show the inhumanity of
When a person died, their body would be
taken to a church for the funeral. These
rights were not given to the those who died
in the war. These men died for their country,
yet what funeral right were they given?
“passing bells”
are the bells
used to
announce a
death.
“What passing-bells for these who
die as cattle?”
What image is Owen creating here? The savagery and brutality of
war is reflected on in this image of death. Using the word ‘cattle’ is a
graphic way of showing how the men had no control over their lives.
Like cattle, they were there to be slaughtered.
Owen asks a rhetorical question before providing
the answer. He allows the reader to reflect on the
reality of how young men die at war and what
sounds after their death is not bells , but..
“Only the monstrous anger of the
guns.”
Instead of an honourable death, with a funeral and
people mourning them, they will just die on the
battlefield. No one will come and no one will try and
find them.
The imagery Owen uses here appeals to our
hearing and sight. Owen recreates the sounds
of the battlefield , showing the anger of war
with constant “stuttering” of guns killing
innocent lives.
“Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.”
Owen uses both alliteration and
onomatopoeia to further
empathise the firing of the
guns. The alliteration mimics
the sound of the gun fire. The
gun is also personified by using
the word “patter”.
Their ‘funeral prayers’ need to be
completed quickly as there are so
many to be said. This
empathises the vast number of
men killed in battle.
There is no dignity or pleasantries in dying at war. No one mourns
for our men who have been sent to be slaughtered. There are simply
too many for them to be accounted for individuality and for them to
all receive the burial they deserve for making the ultimate sacrifice.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
Despite Owen’s orthodox Christian
upbringing, how his faith actually developed
during the last years is far from clear, and it is
hard not to think that he was not remembering
in this poem those members of the clergy, and
they were many, who were preaching not the
gospel of peace but of war.
The glorious dead will
have nothing. No
voices mourning them.
There will however be
choirs. But will these
be choirs in the
traditional sense?
The only choirs that will be present at these men’s
funerals will be the horrific sounds of shells and warfare.
Owen is emphasising the tragedy and pity of war.
“The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.”
Raving mad- this highlights
the sense that the shells and
bombs are completely out
of control. Perhaps there is
no controlling the madness
of war.
Many men came from the English counties
and countryside. Bugles were sounded,
calling them and encouraging them to go to
war, to their deaths. There is solemn tone
here heightening the sense of sadness.
The juxtaposition of "choirs" and
"wailing shells" is a startling metaphor,
God’s world and the Devil’s both as
one; after which line 8 leads into the
sestet with the contrasted, muted sound
of the Last Post.
“What candles may be held to speed them all?”
Why does
Owen use
the word
“boys”?
“Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.”
The last sights these men would ever see would
be the horrors and pity of war. The image here
is of the tearful eyes of the soldiers, glittering
like candles as they go towards their doom.
paleness
Coffin cloth
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
Flowers suggest
beauty and sadness.
They patiently wait
for their men to
return.
Aptly, dusk is falling in the last line and speaks of finality. The dusk
is slow, for that is how time passes for those who mourn, and with
the drawing down of blinds and the attendant sadness.
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
We may think of a house in Shrewsbury where at the eleventh hour
of the eleventh day of the eleventh month a telegram was delivered
that informed Wilfred Owen’s parents of his death just a week earlier.
In ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ we see the main image is the funeral
service that was not given to soldiers for their bravery and help to the
country, instead Owen compares a burial to what happened out on
the battlefield. The first verse was lively with gunfire; the imagery
appeals to hearing and sight.
The second verse we see that there are no aural images. It is a much
more silent and quiet verse, trying to show the sadness of war. Owen
was trying to show the sadness of war.
Anthem for Doomed Youth is mainly about young, brave soldiers not
getting a proper funeral service. There are images of death, sounds
of gunfire and bells. Owen felt sorrow for those killed out on the
battlefield for their country, not getting the treatment/funeral they
deserve for their ultimate sacrifice.
Form: Sonnet
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A sonnet is a poetic form
It has 14 lines
rhyme scheme divides the poem's 14 lines into
two parts, an octet (first eight lines) and a sestet
(last six lines)
The 'volta', or 'turn' of meaning or focus in the
poem occurs before the sextet, as is traditional:
“And bugles calling for them from sad shires.”