|
||||
![]() |
![]() 1893-1918 |
|||
|
||||
![]() Wilfred Owen, der havde skrevet overvejende religiøst inspirerede digte siden sin tidlige ungdom, underviste i årene 1913-15 i engelsk i Frankrig. Dybt berørt af adskillige besøg på militærhospitaler meldte han sig under fanerne i 1915. I januar 1917 blev han overflyttet til skyttegravene i Frankrig, hvor hans livssyn blev totalt ændret. Han deltog som officer i slaget ved Somme, men blev indlagt med granatchok på et hospital i Scotland. På hospitalet mødte han Siegfried Sassoon, hvis dystre antikrigsdigte vakte genklang hos Owen. Sassoon vejledte og rådgav Owen, som herefter skrev det bedste i sin korte karriere, mens han reconvalcerede. Owen var oprørt over det meningsløse myrderi på slagmarken, hvor soldaterne led, kæmpede og gøde i skyttegravenes mudder og elendighe. og over at ingen (især kirken) var i stand til at stoppe det. Han døde et år efter at være vendt tilbage til fronten og kun en uge før krigen sluttede i 1918. |
![]() Wilfred Owen, who had written mainly religiously inspired poetry since his early youth, taught English in France in the years 1913-15. Deeply affected by several visits to military hospitals he joined the army in 1915. In January 1917 he was transferred to the trenches in France, where his outlook on life changed completely. He took part as an officer in the battle of the Somme, but was hopitalised in Scotland with shell shock. At the hospital he met Siegfried Sasson whose sombre anti-war poetry Owen identfied with. Sassoon tutored and advised Owen who subsequently wrote the best poems of his short career while reconvalescing. Owen was revolted by the senseless killing on the battlefield, where soldiers suffered, fought and died miserably in the muddy trenches, and by the fact that no one (the church in particular) was able to stop it. He died a year after having returned to the front and only a week before the war ended in 1918. |
|||
|
||||
Greater Love Red lips are not so red
Mental Cases Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Anthem for Doomed Youth What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Dulce et
Decorum est Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstacy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. – Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams before my helpless sight He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin, If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs Bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, – My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. |
||||
|
||||
Reproduced here under educational Fair Use laws | ||||
|
||||
![]() The Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive Poems by Wilfred Owen. With an Introduction by Siegfried Sassoon |
||||
|