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1 | P a g e
Wilfred Owen wrote some of the best British poetry on World War I. He was very
outspoken about his feelings towards the war itself. Owen wrote from the perspective of his
intense personal experiences on the front line. The “Preface” was meant to precede his poems
once they were published. It was in this preface that Owen specified his beliefs as a war poet.
The themes throughout his poems intend to illustrate the beastliness of war, aiming to tell the
truth about what he called “the pity of war”. Owen’s poetry brought to life the horror of war and
drew attention to the terrible suffering and waste that war involved. Owen felt it was his duty as
a poet to disclose the truth of war in the “Preface”. A truth compounded of ugliness and
suffering, of brutality and horrors, of ignominy and death. These truths were exemplified in his
poems “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Dulce et Decorum Est”.
Wilfred Owens believed that too many war poems written in the past had been
glorifications of war. Praising soldiers as if they were heroes dying a noble death. The very first
line of the preface says, “This book is not about heroes” (1127). Many earlier poets would
romanticize war. Owen wanted readers to know the truth about war. That it is a senseless waste
of young lives and is not about making heroes. He wrote from his own experiences with the
war, watching young men being led off like cattle to their death. While back home, fighting for
one’s country was considered a heroic and noble act. Owen did not hide his anger and
displeasure towards the war.
Wilfred Owen wanted his readers to be shocked by the violent and bloody
meaninglessness of war. He also wanted readers to feel sympathy for the dead and dying.
“Poetry is in the pity”, means his subjects are young naïve men and not conventional heroes.
They are men who are scared, mourn, cry, rage and even die. Even after the war, survivors must
deal with the aftermath of war. Owen wanted to create a universal sense of what war was like
2 | P a g e
and what war could do to a person. Owen’s poetry evokes pity for wasted lives and this is
evident in “Anthem for the Youth”.
In Owen’s poetry he wanted readers to feel sympathy for the loss of life on both sides of
the conflict. If the readers could feel the sympathy or know the truth of war, they would be less
inclined to continue the deadly fighting. “All a poet can do is warn. That is why the true Poets
must be truthful” (1127). Owen did not want his readers to be consoled. His intention was to
show the gruesome but true depiction of death in battle. This was to stand as a warning to his
generation that war must be stopped. In “Dulce et Decorum Est”, the reader gets insight to the
brutal everyday struggle of soldiers. Owen hoped that a day would come when his poems could
serve as a consolation. Helping people who had learned their lesson to mourn the dead and get
on with their life.
