The Life of Wilfred Owen, WW1 Poet

By Kate     date 27 July 2025

I  love literature, but another thing I also love is history. What I love more is when the two coincide. And war poetry is a perfect example of that. War brings out many things in humanity. The best, the worst. Beauty and destruction. Poetry is used by so many as a way to get their feelings out, down on paper. Poetry is one of the many tools we have to truly understand human nature. So it makes sense that men, women, people in all situations write poetry. Particularly those in difficult times, such as
war.

Now, there are many many amazing poets from the First
World War, but my personal favourite is Wilfred Owen. In my opinion, no one wrote or perhaps even writes war as he did. I remember that I was assigned some of his poems, Exposure and Dulce Et Decorum Est in school and never shook them. He had a way of writing war like no other man, like he’d lived it in his bones. And of course, we know he did. He was one of the approximately 70 million people to serve in The Great War. That’s also why I like his poetry so much more than other poets I had to study, such as Rupert Brooke and Jessie Pope who never graced the trenches. Yes, I know Rupert Brooke died on his way over and Jessie Pope was a woman, but I digress. The poems they wrote, especially Pope’s “Play the Game” minimise war, in my opinion. I mean, this was the “greatest” war that the world had ever seen. That had decades of build up to it. That killed 16 million people. Yet “Play the Game” compares it to that of a football match, something patriotic and:
“Get to work with a gun.
When our country’s at war, we must all back up—
It’s the only thing to be done!”
Yet, those at the front lines, those who experience all the horrors war has to offer, will not say it’s a game or perhaps even noble. Of course, I cannot speak for everyone and certainly do not mean to, yet we know that not everyone felt like this. Owen himself disputes that in his poetry - “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” In English, it means: The old Lie: It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. War is not a game. At least not in the way Pope meant. But the First World War was a politician’s game that the innocent civilians had to play and die for. To quote from William Hussey’s fantastic book, The Boy I Love, “Now it’s lives that are staked at this table, the bets of old men paid for in young blood.”
The First World War broke out on the 28th of July following the trigger cause of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by Serbian nationalists. Additionally, this is also what I’m currently studying in history. So naturally, in the anniversary month of the outbreak of one of humanity’s darkest moments, the First World War has been on my mind and so I thought what better thing to do than write about my favourite poet from “The Great War”.

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born in Oswestry on the 18th of March 1893 to parents Thomas Owen, a railway clerk, and Susan Owen, who came from a formerly affluent family, but tides had turned for the worse when she was young. He was the oldest of four, being born in his maternal grandmother’s home. Following the death of his grandfather in 1897, the family moved to Merseyside. As for education, he was educated at the Birkenhead Institute, followed by Shrewsbury Technical School after his father took on a position as assistant railway superintendent.
He matriculated at the University of London; however, he did not receive the scholarship necessary for him to continue his education there. Taking on an unpaid position as an Anglican vicar near Reading, he tended to all his parishioners in need. Some believe that is what heightened Owen’s sensitivity to human suffering which would later shine through in his writing. But it also left him disillusioned with Christianity. He lived in France in 1913 after recovering from illness and worked as a school teacher in Bordeaux from 1913-15. He’d always wanted to be a poet, experimenting since an early age. Here he began to write a group of poems, which also laid the groundwork for the rhyming patterns we see in his works, that he wanted to release as a book, but it was never published. His early works are consciously modelled from the romantic poets, such as Keats and they showed that he enjoyed the craft.

Owen enlisted to serve in 1915, and was sent to France the following year as part of the Lancashire Fusiliers to fight in the trenches of the biggest conflict mankind had yet known. It was horrific. During the first 6 months there, he was gassed with poison, mustard gas (a liquid agent used in chemical warfare that blisters the skin and mucous membranes upon direct contact that has a faint garlic or mustard odour), and also had to sleep in an exposed field of snow. Additionally, one incident left him huddled in a foxhole for several days with the body of a fallen comrade. He would also arrive at the infamous Battle of the Somme in late 1916 where he experienced the brutal realities of war. Being trapped underground for a period of time coupled with other awful experiences, it led Owen to develop Shell-Shock in May 1917. War accelerated his maturity as a poet and led to the famous pieces that we have today as his pieces following January 1917 are full of bitter anger at the brutality of the monster that is war and elegiac pity for those “who die as cattle” (Anthem for Doomed Youth).
He would return to Britain to be treated in the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland where he met one of his literary heroes, Siegfried Sassoon in August 1917, an experience which would shape his poetry greatly. Sassoon shared Owen’s feelings about war and encouraged him to write more explicitly about the atrocities and reality of war. Additionally, Dr Brock (Owen’s doctor at the hospital) encouraged him to contribute to The Hydra, the hospital’s magazine, which led to him refining his skills. These experiences paved the way for his most powerful pieces that would come in 1918.

Owen returned to the front lines in 1918 after more than 12 months away. He took part in the breaking of the Hindenburg Line at Joncourt (October 1918) which would earn him a Military Cross for his courage and leadership. In a cruel turn of fate, the poet was killed on the 4th of November 1918, almost to the hour a week before the armistice to end the war was signed. He was 25 years old.
Practically all the poems he is remembered for were written during the period between August 1917 and September 1918. He tasked himself with speaking for the men in the trenches, under his care and to showcase “the Pity of War”. He also expressed these sentiments in letters home. The bleak realism, compassion, marvelous skill, indignation and stark language in his poetry is evident in so much of his work.

My personal favourites of his works are Exposure, Dulce et Decorum Est and Anthem for Doomed Youth. Exposure really shows you the bleak reality of war, and also shines a light on some of the more quiet yet equally sinister moments of combat. The agonising wait, the harsh elements, the exposure that kills so many. The line that hunts me most is “We turn back to our dying”. It is not only the “Sudden successive flights of bullets” that kill those in the trenches. Dulce et Decorum Est was the first poem of his that I read and it had a lasting impact on me. Practically all that I’d read about war before were either cold historical facts or patriotic fervour. But I never quite took those at face value, so his poem impacted me deeply. The fact it showcased reality, written in the trenches, struck something inside of me and never let go. Like I said before, war is not a game and this poem highlights this element of conflict. And Anthem for Doomed Youth talks about the cost for those who actually fight the war, for those who are young. That “die as cattle”. After all, war is never fought by those who orchestrate it. It is “paid for in young blood”. This was always something that I’d thought about and felt strongly about, still do, and it is so important that people understand this element of war, and so this is a very important poem to me. There’s so much more I could say about all of these poems and his other works, but I’ll save that for another day. Here are links to the three poems if you’re curious:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57261/exposure-56d23a961ef5a

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47393/anthem-for-doomed-youth

To conclude, I hope you enjoyed this piece. I love to read poetry, but my favourite poetry is war poetry because it showcases the darkest sides of humanity. And unfortunately, I do not believe that humanity has learnt many, if any lessons from prior conflict in previous generations. So perhaps some little part of me hopes that more people will read his poetry and learn about the atrocities of war instead of thinking it’s a game. Regardless, this was an important piece to me personally, especially during the anniversary month of WWI. I also just wanted to shine a light on one of my favourite poets and hopefully introduce him to more people. Anyway, I hope you all learnt something or enjoyed reading this piece

Happy reading!

Kate x