Day 2

What’s the title about?

What do the following terms mean? Anthem Doomed

‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’

An anthem is usually a hymn to praise or celebrate but in

this bitterly ironic title, Owen is criticising the

praising of War.

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 war.

‘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.

Structure

What is the structure of the poem? Sonnet 2 stanzas, broken up into an octave and

a sestet Octave – 8 lines Sestet – 6 lines

Style: Elegy – lament for the dead

“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” 

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 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.

The simile

“for these who die as cattle.” What does Owen achieve by

comparing the death of the youth men to that of cattle?

What is a rhetorical question? a statement that is formulated as a

question but that is not supposed to be answered, rather posed to make a point.

So what’s the point that Owen makes? Does he provide 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.

Instead of the sound of bells, what sound will be heard for those who die on the battlefield?

“Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle 

Can patter out their hasty orisons.”

The word “orisons” means prayers. What will replace the prayers of the funeral ceremony?

“Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle 

Can patter out their hasty orisons.”

• How does Owen use imagery here?

• Owen recreates the sounds of the battlefield , showing the anger of war with constant “stuttering” of

guns killing innocent lives.

Their ‘funeral prayers’ need to be completed quickly as there are so many to be said. This

suggests the vast number of men killed in

battle.

What does Owen achieve by the

alliteration Onomatopoeia?

He further suggests the firing of the guns. The alliteration mimics the sound of the gun fire.

The gun is also personified by using the

word “patter”.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, – 

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.

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?

What kind of choir will they have?

“The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; 

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.” 

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.

“Demented” means insane. Do you think

“demented” is a suitable word to

describe the shells? Why or why not?

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.What words suggest the sound of

the shells in flight?

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?” 

In peacetime at a funeral, candles might be held by choirboys. What will the dead youth have instead of candles?

“Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes 

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.” 

Why does Owen

use the word

“boys”?

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.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; 

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, 

Flowers suggest beauty and

sadness.

paleness Coffin cloth

They patiently wait for their

men to return.

So what will the doomed youth have instead of a pall?

And what will there be for them instead of flowers?

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

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.

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.

It was the custom to draw down the blinds of a house as a mark of respect for someone’s death. How could “each slow dusk” be “a drawing-down of blinds”? What does the poet achieve here by this metaphor?

• What is the main image in ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’?

• 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.

• What are some tones in this poem?

• Somber/grave /dark- What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”

• Sad - “The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; 

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.” 

• What’s the poem mainly about? What is Owen telling us 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.

Do you think “Anthem for Doomed Youth” is a suitable title for the poem? Explain your viewpoint.

What do you think of war and its effects after studying the

poem?