Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen – Life, Poetry, and Famous Quotes

Explore the life of Wilfred Owen (1893–1918), England’s greatest First World War poet. Learn about his early years, war service, key poems, lasting impact, and powerful quotes on war, memory, and humanity.

Introduction

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen (born 18 March 1893 – died 4 November 1918) is widely regarded as one of the foremost poets of the First World War. His vivid, harrowing, and unflinching verse exposed the horror, futility, and sorrow of war in contrast to the patriotic idealism then prevalent. Though he died just one week before the Armistice, his legacy endures: his poems give voice to the “pity of war.”

Owen’s work is marked by its combination of technical innovation (notably pararhyme and assonance), moral urgency, and deeply felt empathy with soldiers’ suffering.

Early Life and Family

Wilfred Owen was born in Oswestry, Shropshire, England.

His childhood was not without hardship. When his grandfather died, family finances worsened, and they moved several times, including to Birkenhead and later Shrewsbury.

As a youth, Owen was deeply influenced by the Bible and by Romantic poets, including Keats and Shelley.

In his late teens, he served as a pupil-teacher at Wyle Cop school.

In 1913, Owen worked in France teaching English and French.

War Service & Transformation as Poet

Enlistment & the Front

In October 1915, Owen enlisted in the Artists Rifles.

He experienced the grim realities of warfare: shell shocks, exposure to trench misery, and deep mental and physical strain. Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh to recover.

It was at Craiglockhart that he met the poet Siegfried Sassoon, whose mentorship and frank realism deeply shaped Owen’s poetic voice.

Return to the Front & Death

After recuperation, Owen returned to the front in 1918. 4 November 1918—just one week before the war’s end.

He was posthumously promoted to Lieutenant, and his family in England received notification on Armistice Day.

His gravestone bears lines altered by his mother from his poetry: “SHALL LIFE RENEW THESE BODIES? OF A TRUTH ALL DEATH WILL HE ANNUL” (the trailing question mark omitted).

Poetry: Themes, Style & Major Works

Themes & Purpose

Owen’s poetry rejects romanticized perceptions of war. His subject is starkly war and its pity, rather than heroism or glory.

He sought to convey the suffering of soldiers, the waste of lives, the contrast between patriotic rhetoric and brutal reality, and the moral imperative to remember.

Style & Innovation

Technically, Owen is notable for pararhyme (half rhymes) and assonance, creating tension, dissonance, and a musical but uneasy sound.

Major Poems

Some of Owen’s best-known works include:

• “Dulce et Decorum Est” – his most famous poem condemning the notion that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.

• “Anthem for Doomed Youth” – lamenting the death of young soldiers and comparing war funerals to mechanical slaughter.

• “Futility” – meditating on the fragility of life and the pointlessness of war’s destructiveness.

• “Strange Meeting” – a visionary encounter in the afterlife between soldiers, reflecting on death, regret, and shared suffering.

• “The Parable of the Old Men and the Young” – a modern retelling of the Abraham and Isaac story, used as allegory for the slaughter of youth.

Owen wrote most of his poetry between 1917 and 1918.

Only five of his poems were published during his lifetime; the rest were released posthumously.

His Preface to his poems famously states:

“My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”

He also began his Preface with:

“This book is not about heroes. … Above all I am not concerned with Poetry.”

Legacy and Influence

Owen’s legacy as a war poet is profound and enduring:

• He is often regarded as the greatest English war poet for his moral clarity, technical mastery, and emotional depth.

• His work has shaped how later generations imagine and memorialize war—less heroic, more tragic and human.

• His poems are taught widely in schools and universities; they are often invoked in discussions about war, memory, trauma, and literature.

• His lines are quoted in music, memorials, documentaries, and political discourse about war and remembrance.

• The Wilfred Owen Association continues to promote his memory; Craiglockhart (where he was treated) and Ors (where he died) host memorials.

• In Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner, Owen is commemorated among Great War poets, with the inscription taken from his Preface: “the pity of war.”

Personality, Beliefs & Moral Stance

Wilfred Owen was introspective, deeply compassionate, morally earnest, and wrestling with faith and disillusionment. His early religious faith gave way to a more complicated, often anguished spiritual perspective as he experienced war.

He felt that poets had to warn:

“All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.”

He also saw that language and poetry themselves could carry moral weight:

“Do you know what would hold me together on a battlefield? The sense that I was perpetuating the language in which Keats … wrote!”

His writing is often driven by tension: between hope and despair, beauty and horror, remembrance and forgetting.

Famous Quotes by Wilfred Owen

Here are some poignant and widely cited quotations from Owen’s poems, letters, and Preface:

“My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.” “All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.” “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks… till on the haunting flares we turned our backs…” (from Dulce et Decorum Est) “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori.” “It seemed that out of battle I escaped / Down some profound dull tunnel…” “I have perceived much beauty / In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight; / Heard music in the silentness of duty…” “Do you know what would hold me together on a battlefield? The sense that I was perpetuating the language in which Keats … wrote!” “Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.”

Lessons from Wilfred Owen

1. Speak truth even in horror
   Owen teaches writers and readers that beauty and honesty can coexist—even in the darkest circumstances.

2. Memory is moral work
   He insisted on remembrance, resisting forgetfulness in the face of atrocity.

3. Language matters
   His formal innovation shows that how something is said has as much power as what is said.

4. Empathy as resistance
   His poems force us to see soldiers as individuals, not abstractions.

5. Short life, lasting impact
   Though dying at 25, Owen’s voice remains central to how we think about war, sacrifice, and the human cost of conflict.

Conclusion

Wilfred Owen was a poet who transformed the way the modern world sees war. Through stark imagery, moral courage, and formal daring, he exposed the myth of glory and insisted on the pity — and the human cost — of conflict. Though his life was brief, his work continues to warn, to grieve, and to challenge.