SonnetOn seeing a piece of our

heavy artillery brought into action

by Wilfred Owen

Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,

Great gun towering toward Heaven, about to curse;

Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse

Huge imprecations like a blasting charm!

Reach at that arrogance which needs thy harm,

And beat it down before its sins grow worse;

Spend our resentment, cannon, yea, disburse

Our gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.

Yet, for men’s sakes whom thy vast malison

Must wither innocent of enmity,

Be not withdrawn, dark arm, thy spoilure done,

Safe to the bosom of our prosperity.

But when thy spell be cast complete and whole,

May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul!

Spoken curses

Curse

Pay out

Explanation?

Octet

Owen expresses a typical pro-war view - war against Germany is just and necessary and that God is on the side of the allies.

Sestet

In contrast to the octet, Owen expresses the horror of war and that God will judge those responsible for the war.

Context?

- Written in July 1917

Significance?

Written at Craiglockhart (June – November 1917) after Wilfred Owen came under the influence of Sigfried Sassoon

Themes?

• Aggression of war

• Pity of war seen by the vulnerability of men in the face of weapons of destruction

• Nationalism + the monetary cost of war

• God will judge those responsible for the war

Significance of the title?

Owen was greatly influenced by the poetry of John Keats. One of Keats’ sonnets was entitled: On Seeing the Elgin Marbles, which Owen may have used ironically as the pattern for On Seeing a Piece of Our Heavy Artillery. Keats’ sonnet celebrates the Greek sculptures, a creative and cultural depiction of an ancient conflict. Owen’s sonnet exposes the destructive nature of war.

Personification of ‘great gun’?

• Referred to as ‘thou’, ‘thy’, ‘thee’

• Human voice

- ‘Curse’, ‘Imprecations’

• Human actions

- ‘Rehearse’, ‘Spend’

• Human will

- ‘Reach’, ‘Beat’

Why?

1. Draws attention to the symbolism of the ‘great gun’ by giving it human properties.

Symbolism of ‘great gun’:

- War

- Militaristic, aggressive spirit that fuelled the war

2. The First World War is the first example of mechanisation of war, to expose the fact that machines are quite inhuman.

Form?

Sonnet

- A way of romanticising the war

- Personification of the ‘great gun’ supports this idea

Petrarchan

- After the octet containing a strong pro-war argument, ‘Yet’ marks and emphasizes a clear volta

- Sestet responds to the octet with an opposite anti-war view, made clear in the rhyming couplet

Structure?

• Rhyme scheme

- abbaabba cded ff

- Regular rhyming pattern in the octet unsettled by the final pararhyme of ‘harm’ and ‘storm’

- Change in rhyming pattern after the volta emphasizes the change of message

- Rhyming couplet introduces final idea

Structure?

• Rhythm

- Pentameter

- Disrupted in line 2 of the octet to emphasize ‘curse’

• Meter

- Mixture of starting off iambs and trochees

- Trochees give emphasis to the imperatives

Alliteration?

• ‘Great gun’

- Repeated ‘g’ sounds give weight to the weapon

• ‘Sway sweep’

- Repeated ‘s’ sounds emphasize the swinging out motion of the cannon when about to attack

• Sibilance

- ‘sins’, ‘worse’, ‘spend’, ‘resentment’, ‘disburse’, ‘breaths’, ‘storms’

- Angry hissing sound

• Plosive

- ‘cast complete’, ‘curse’, ‘cut’

- Adds to the finality of God’s action

Language?

• Spiritual/ Biblical

- ‘Heaven’, ‘curse’, ‘sins’, ‘God’, ‘soul’

- ‘Thou’, ‘thy’, ‘thee’

Why?

Lends authority

- Octet: Supports the idea that God is on the side of the allies

- Sestet: Supports the ultimate idea that God will judge those responsible for the war

Language?

• Archaic language

- ‘Malison’, ‘spoilure’

- ‘Thou’, ‘thy’, ‘thee’, ‘yea’

- ‘Be not withdrawn’

Why?

Gives the ‘great gun’ an air of dignity and importance

Metaphors?

• ‘towering towards Heaven’

- The gun strives to reach heaven, to become God-like

• ‘rehearse’

- Artillery fire sounds out year after year as if practicing to become perfect

• ‘imprecations [like a blasting charm]’ simile

- Artillery creates noises of war but war itself blasts at life, causing death and destruction

• ‘our breath in storms’

- The gun also ‘spends’ the life of men in war

• ‘thy vast malison’

• ‘when thy spell be cast’

- The death and destruction caused by the gun

• ‘cut thee from our soul’

- Humankind to be free of such weapons of war

• ‘spend’

- Pun on ‘spent’ (ammunition)

- In the sense of spending money

• ‘disburse’

- Also spending money

• ‘gold in shapes of flame’

- Britain’s gold reserves spent on buying armaments which would go up in flame

Military tone?

• Aggressive use of the ‘great gun’

• Imperative language

- Use of imperative verbs in alternate odd lines of the octet

- Giving of orders to the ‘great gun’

- ‘Be … lifted up’, ‘Sway’, ‘Reach’, ‘Spend’

Irony?

- The octet supports a pro-war view yet it is clear from the sestet that Owen’s view is the opposite

- In the octet, Owen orders the ‘great gun’ to strike out at the enemy yet in the sestet, it is clear that Owen does not agree with the morality of those orders

References?

• http://www.wilfredowen.org.uk/poetry/sonnet

• http://crossref-it.info/textguide/wilfred-owen-selected-poems/36/2636

• http://crossref-it.info/textguide/wilfred-owen-selected-poems/36/2637

• http://crossref-it.info/textguide/wilfred-owen-selected-poems/36/2638

THE END