Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend Siegfried Sassoon and stood in stark contrast to both the public perception of war at the time, and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously – are "Dulce et Decorum Est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility" and "Strange Meeting".
Read more about Wilfred Owen: Early Life, War Service, Poetry, Relationship With Sassoon, Death, Depictions in Popular Culture
Famous quotes by wilfred owen:
“A short life and a merry one, my buck!
We used to say we’d hate to live dead-old,—
Yet now . . . I’d willingly be puffy, bald,
And patriotic.”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)
“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.”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)
“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now.”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)
“For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)
“I thought of all that worked dark pits
Of war, and died
Digging the rock where Death reputes
Peace lies indeed.”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)