"Wild With All Regrets" by Wilfred Owen

This poem seems to be from Owen's deathbed, although it says it was written in 1917 and Owen died in 1918. As I read this poem over, what strikes me the most is switch in tones throughout the poem. I find that this switch is very representative of how people are once they find out that they will die: they are bitter, they regret and miss all the things they didn't do and will not be able to do, they beg for another way to live, and then they accept it.
At first, the speaker is complaining about how much his "arms", "fingers", and "back" have been in pain "for hours" and he can't relax because "Death never gives... a stand-at-ease"(1-4). He complains that he "can't read", bitterly returns the book, and sarcastically, thanks whoever by wishing them "a short life and a merry one" (5, 6). This tart tone and attitude is quite different from the rest of the poem, where the speaker is begging for his life.

I think there should be a break in the stanza in between lines six and seven. In line seven, the speaker begins seems not to be bitter about dieing, but rather remorseful that his life is ending. Contrary from his youth, “not to live old seems awful” (8). He ponders on “the arts of hurting” which he will not be able to teach his “boys” and “renew/ [his] boyhood”(8-10). Towards the end of the first stanza he switches to begging for life, for just “one spring”, which might just be “too long”.

The second stanza shifts once again, to a surrendering tone, where he would become “a sweep’s boy”, “a muckman”, “ a flea”, or even “dear dust” (26-29). Now that he is faced with death, he doesn’t mind lowering himself to any of the preceding things which clearly carry a lower position than his.

I must admit that the last statement of the second stanza confused me. What does he mean by “If one chap wasn’t bloody/, or went stone-cold, I’d find another body” (29, 30)? Does he mean that he would go into the friend (Siegfried Sassoon, as mentioned at the beginning of the poem) and live through him and his poetry?

"Smile, Smile, Smile" by Wilfred Owen

What caught my attention in Owen’s “Smile, Smile, Smile” was how the sound of the poem as it is read out loud elevates the meaning of the poem. I thought it sounded bouncy, like a song, since all of the lines are decasyllables. The rhyme scheme was somewhat confusing to me, because it does not follow a specific pattern. For example, the first eight lines follow an ABBA CDDC pattern. Lines 9-12 follow an EFEF pattern, while 13-16 follow a GGGG pattern. I think both the rhyme scheme and the syllable count add to the slightly jovial way the poem sounds when it is read out loud, which in turns contributes to the sarcasm Owen uses while trying to point out the ignorance of the people and paper.

I find that these patterns empower Owen’s poem since the sarcasm is his way of approaching the public’s view of war. The newspaper focuses on the superficial things such as the “Vast Booty”, while undermining “the casualties” which are “typed small” (2, 3). It speaks lightly about the “dead” and how “Victory” is the only thing “worthy” for the ones “who fought” (9, 13, 16). The soldiers also know that when the newspaper speaks of the “integrity” of the “nation” that it is simply for the public and that they know the real “secret”- all of England’s “integrity” “had fled to France” (17, 20, 22). The last three lines also demonstrate the superficiality of the newspaper and its readers, while it prints “pictures of… broad smiles…each week”, and the people who say “How they smile!” (24, 26.) Owen uses the rhyme scheme and the syllable count to make the poem sound cheerful, just as the civilians who read the newspaper feel towards the veterans – “They’re happy now, poor things (26)”.

"Survivors" by Siegfried Sassoon

"Survivors" caught my attention because, like "'They,'" it deals with the change soldiers experience in war. It seems that Sassoon views the effect of war as simultaneously aging soldiers beyond their years, until they have "old, scared faces," and making them like "children, with eyes that hate you" (4, 10). Though the "shock and strain" they feel in a single battle may well be more than most feel in a lifetime, it also leaves them unable to care for themselves or articulate their thoughts- the "stammering, disconnected talk"- much like a child (1, 2).

I was, I admit, somewhat confused by aspects of the poem. The line "of course they're 'longing to go out again'" (3) was particularly perplexing. Perhaps it means that, like an infant, they are "learning to walk," yet still eager to see the world around them (4). However, this explanation doesn't fully explain it, I find- what are your thoughts?

"They" by Siegfried Sassoon

What most struck me about Sassoon’s “They” is the juxtaposition of the bishop’s thoughts and those of the soldiers, and the irony this creates. The bishop’s justifications for war - such as that it is an “attack on Anti-Christ” (3-4), or fought for the “right to breed an honorable race”(5) - are the standard ones, used historically by everyone from the Crusaders to the Nazis to make war seem like an righteous cause. In the second stanza, however, the reader hears from “the boys,” those who have actually experienced war, and the switch in tone is jarring (7). Though they agree that experiencing war will cause “some change” (11), to them war is altogether more damaging. Instead of the ennobling effect the bishop sees in battle, they see only the risk of losing “both… legs” or going “stone blind” (8). The ironic contrast between their words is heightened by the bishop’s lame response that “the ways of God are strange” (12), as if he himself cannot see what is noble about being “shot through the lungs” (9).