An Analysis of Wilfred Owen’s poem Anthem for Doomed Youth

Like music and the other arts, the illusions of poetry can be extremely abstract and at times obtuse to many readers. I completed this analysis after recently re-reading Susanne K. Langer's book entitled Feeling and Form (1953) . My goal was to analyze the poem within the tenets and conceptualizations of Langer's theoretical contexts and aesthetic means to comprehend poetry.  Of particular intrest is Langer's view that poetry constitutes a "purely and completely experienced reality, a piece of virtual life".

Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth: An Illusion of Life in the Present Tense

By Edward A. Kliszus, Ph.D.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

Wilfred Owen (Williams 1973, 553).

(1863-1918)

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, ---

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

     The application of Susanne K. Langer's conceptual framework to an analysis of the ambiguities and meanings in Wilfred Owen's poem entitled Anthem for Doomed Youth, leads the reader into the exploration of particularly interesting images. The interpretation of this poem takes one into the realm of human expression, colorfully represented, exemplified and magnified by the powerful structural elements of poesis.

     Through the formal structures of its text and language, this poem creates a virtual world within itself, expressing feelings associated with death, despair, bitterness, sadness and hopelessness. The emotive images are over-determined, helping to create a great variety of human feelings that cohabit in the vital import (Langer 1953, 242). The expression of an idea, in this case, comprised of specific human feelings and images, is the ruling purpose of art (52). The purpose of art is then, the presentation of an idea through an articulate symbol such as poetry. The poet has thus organized the semblance of events in order to constitute a “purely and completely experienced reality, a piece of virtual life” (212, 228) The poem exists in a virtual world of its own.

     The sentience or the feelings expressed are among the formal properties of the poem. This sentience exists regardless of the reader’s personal characteristics. The expression of particular human feelings permeates the whole structure and the articulation of the structure is an articulation of the ideas conveyed (52). The poem's formal properties, codes and non-discursive symbols profoundly affect the reader’s experience; a careful study of the formal properties of this poem will allow one to be fully responsive to the work. Symbols that express feelings are created by the poem and these feelings are expressed at all times, wherein "the poem exists objectively when presented to us” (211).

     The primary illusion (primary in this sense means always, not first), semblance, or schein, is carefully shaped by the poet's work in order to achieve significance and logical expression; in poetry, this is life in the mode of the present tense (50). The first line of the poem establishes the semblance of experienced events, or the “illusion of life” (214), and sets the expressive tone for the rest of the work. The carefully crafted form and content then direct the reader to understand the primary illusion in one way. Fixing abstract relationships to feelings expressed in the poem and visualization of the non-discursive representations of complex relationships that exist, furthermore direct the reader to an understanding of the vital import.

     In this poem, the artist creates abstract relationships between words and utilizes illusions from other art forms that appear as secondary illusions or echoes; all coexist to create the primary illusion of life. The poet utilizes a variety of devices to “produce and sustain the essential illusion, to set it off clearly from the surrounding world of actuality and articulate its form to the point where it coincides unmistakably with forms of feeling and living” (67-68). The poet skillfully sustains the illusion, sets it off from reality, and demonstrates its essential relationships.

     The human feelings represented in this poem are part of the primary illusion of life in the mode of the present tense. These feelings are the basic creation wherein all the poem’s elements exist. These elements produce and support the primary illusion. All the elements of the poem are factors in the semblance and are virtual themselves. The context of the work determines the elements’ properties and all elements of the work support the primary illusion. The almost infinite combination of elements, including the abstraction of language, poetic devices and secondary illusions, add richness and fecundity to the form (84).      

In the poem, images usually associated with death with its usual treatment in religious funerals are presented to contrast with death during war. The low value war has set on human life is exemplified with the opening reference of those “who die as cattle,” akin to animals in a slaughterhouse. There are no parish bells ringing to announce the passing of a parishioner, bells which precede a time of reflection, appropriate observation and respect for the dead. Instead of church bells, we hear sounds of war that are intimidating, percussive and angry. The horrible, “monstrous” anger of the guns and the sound of "stuttering rifles" proclaim the dying’s “hasty orisons” (prayers).

     The non-discursive meanings of the words used create imagery in the virtual world of this poem; words are assembled in seemingly incongruous relationships in order to abstract their usual language associations. These words attain new embodiment in unreal instances in order to set them free from their usual uses. The words and their relationships are abstracted, making them clearly apparent in a particular vital import consisting of the feelings and meanings expressed. Phrases described as peculiarities of language and dialect, function as poetical devices and provoke oblique thought while acting as symbols to express human feelings (51). The non-discursive meanings that emanate from the elements of the poem subjugated to the creation of sentience. The sentience and human feelings associated here with death and war and its human participants reflect the work’s vital import and significance.

     It is expected that the deceased at a funeral ceremony receive platitudes and retrospective words reflecting lifetime accomplishments. In this virtual reality, not even "mockeries" are offered. There are no prayers or church bells. This abstraction of reality creates images that evoke feelings of cynicism and bitterness, adding emotional intensity to the total sentience. The “shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells” replace the usual voices of mourning for the dead. Bugles, usually utilized in a reverent military death ceremony, are used to call the warriors to “sad shires” and ultimately, to a place where they will die.

     The following represents examples of other words placed in abstract relationships to help create the poem’s vital import. These images reflect major elements of the work's structure and are comprised of words set in unusual associations in a particular context.

• “passing --bells” - Passing refers to dying while bells are associated with religious funeral tradition.
• "Guns" with “monstrous anger” - Guns are expressing human feelings of anger.
• “stuttering rifles rapid rattle” - In alliterated language, rifles pray.
• “rifles patter out their hasty orisons” - The sound of rifles offers last-minute "prayers" for the soldiers in the clutches of death.
• “choirs — voices of mourning”     - The usual church choir has been replaced by sounds of artillery, accompanied by shrill, demented, choirs of wailing shells.            

     The ambiguities of this poem are solved in part through a study of the assimilation of the primary illusion and secondary illusions or echoes. The poet has enhanced the poetic elements by incorporating the modes and illusions of different art forms. While the primary illusion in poetry is life in the mode of the present tense, sound, a component of music’s primary illusion, contributes to the schema as a secondary illusion. The primary illusion of poetry determines the substance and character of the artwork. The secondary illusion of sound from the mode of music, the movement of audible forms, “endows it with richness, elasticity, and wide freedom of creation that makes real art so hard to hold in the meshes of theory” (118)

     The sense of sound appears as a major component of the formal properties of the poem in order to create imagery. In the first eight lines, these auditory images are projected through the words “rapid rattle,” “patter out,” “bells”, “choirs,” “shrill, demented choir,” “wailing shells” and “bugles calling.” The images created place the poem’s virtual world in a war zone replete with the various accouterments of battle, evoking corresponding sounds in our imaginations and helping us to experience the poem as completely as possible. The war zone created by the auditory images helps to create a feeling of space as well. We can visualize the spatial qualities of a virtual battlefield as the poet incorporates the primary illusion of painting, used here as an echo, or secondary illusion in the mode of scene (88).

     The last six lines deal more directly with the primary illusion of poetry, that of life, inferring significant psychological aspects associated with the feelings of the young girls left behind by the boys who have gone off to war. These "girls" are physically described (more echoes of painting) with some development of their personalities. "Girls’ brows" reflects suffering and a sense of hopelessness. “Their flowers” relates to the girls’ “tenderness,” their youthfulness and naive hope. Non-cynical "patient minds" of youth characterizes the girls, who are perhaps in the early stages of waiting for their boys.

     Time, the primary illusion of music, is presented in the last six lines as a secondary illusion, functioning as a device that gives the poem's vital import added emotional significance and depth. This section begins with the question, “What candles may be held to speed them all?” The image of a candle burning with its limited duration indicates time measurement and metaphorically describes humankind's mortality. The religious significance of candles is evoked through the image of "holy glimmers" shining in the eyes of the soldiers who have said their "good-byes" and gone to their deaths. The word "speed," related to the traditional "Godspeed" offered to those facing adversity afar, refers to time, contributing to the illusion. The “slow” dusk reflects each lengthy and difficult day for the girls back home. The assonant “pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall” evokes feelings of loneliness, sadness, weariness and strain. The overall negative effects of long-suffering on the human spirit are exemplified with reference to the “patient minds” of youth, indicating the great length of time these girls have suffered while waiting for the soldiers to return. Now that a great deal of time has passed and hope has diminished, they merely cover the windows at dusk as each day ends, “drawing-down of blinds.” Not only will the boys not hold candles to light their paths home, but also in the throes of numbing despair, the girls shall no longer place candles in the windows to shine as beacons.

Bibliography

Williams, Oscar, ed., 1973. Immortal Poems of the English Language, an Anthology. New York: Washington Square Press, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Langer, Susanne K. 1953. Feeling and Form. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.