Wilfred Owen

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the legacy of the poet, Wilfred Owen. The paper analyzes Owen's critics with regard to the debate over whether or not Owen should be classified as a war poet, or a poet who writes in a socially provocative manner in order to effect social change, or whether Owen should be classified as an elegist, with his work serving as a memorial for his dead comrades. The paper concludes that if the majority of Owen's work can be shown to be operating as a funeral song or lament for the dead, then Owen may be classified as primarily an elegist.

From the Paper:

"The legacy of Wilfred Owen is one that has grown in the century since his death. While critics pore over his poems, analyzing the significance of the changing of single words, one debate that has blossomed since the 1980s is the critical debate over whether or not Owen should be classified as a war poet, or a poet who writes in a socially provocative manner in order to evoke outrage from his readers and effect social change, or whether Owen should be classified as an elegist at heart, with his work serving as a memorial for his dead comrades. On one side of the debate, arguing for Owen to be considered primarily as an elegist, lies Dominic Hibberd, Owen's biographer. Representing the other side, those in favour of classifying Owen as an outrageous poet, working to shock and stir his audience to action, can be found Jon Silkin, an authority on British War Poetry of the First World War. Also arguing for Owen to be considered as an outrageous poet is Marie Gardett, writing in the contemporary scholarly journal Explicator. The proofs offered by Silkin and Gardett, coupled with Owen's "lists of contents", offer a convincing and powerful argument for Silkin's vision of Owen that Hibberd cannot persuasively counter. The working definition of "elegist" that I will use is to refer to a poet who writes "funeral song[s] or lament[s] for the dead" (OED "Elegy"). This definition, adapted from the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of "elegy", comes from the most authoritative source on the definitions of words in the English Language; also, this definition is specific enough to work practically in this essay. If the majority of Owen's work can be shown to be operating as a funeral song or lament for the dead, then Owen may be classified as primarily an elegist."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Blunden, Edmund, ed. The Poems of Wilfred Owen. Chatto & Windus, The Hogarth Press, London: 1931. Includes as an Appendix, Frank Nicholson's Memoir.
• Gardett, Marie Isabel. "Owen's INSENSIBILITY." Explicator 61.4 (2003): 0014-4940.
• Hibberd, Dominic. Wilfred Owen. England: Longman Group Ltd., 1975.
• The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry: Revised Edition, edited by Jon Silkin. Toronto, Canada: 1996. Penguin Group.
• Wilfred Owen: The complete poems and fragments. Editor: Jon Stallsworthy. Volume I. The Manuscripts of the poems and the fragments. Chatto & Windus, The Hogarth Press, London. 1983

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