Wilfred Edward Salter Owen
was born 18 March 1893 in Oswestry, Shropshire. After school he became a
teaching assistant and in 1913 went to France for two years to work as a
language tutor. He began writing poetry as a teenager.
In 1915 he returned to England
to enlist in the army and was commissioned into the Manchester Regiment. After
spending the remainder of the year training in England, he left for the western
front early in January 1917. After experiencing heavy fighting, he was
diagnosed with shellshock. He was evacuated to England and arrived at
Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh in June. There he met the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who
already had a reputation as a poet and shared Owen's views. Sassoon agreed to
look over Owen's poems and gave him encouragement.
Reading Sassoon's poems and
discussing his work with Sassoon revolutionised Owen's style and his conception
of poetry. He returned to France in August 1918 and in October was awarded the
Military Cross for bravery. On 4 November 1918 he was killed while attempting
to lead his men across the Sambre canal at Ors, France. The news of his death reached
his parents on 11 November, Armistice Day.
Edited by Sassoon and
published in 1920, Owen's single volume of poems contain some of the most heartbreaking English
poetry of World War I, including "Dulce et Decorum Est" and "Anthem
for Doomed Youth".
Here you
can find a detailed analysis of the poem "Dulce et Decorum Est".
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