Wilfred Owen died one week before the end of WWI at the age of 25. I don't think the early poems were particularly special, but as C. Day Lewis said in his introduction, Owen's were 'probably the greatest poems about war in our literature'. Read especially Dulce et Decorum Est and Disabled. I don't think any other work so beautifully describes the futility and horror of war. The work is - in all senses - stunning.
(Julie Higgins - bwl 9 June 2001 ) |
