Commentary on the Poem "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen Ilaria Marchese 12th Grade

The poem Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen was written during World War I in 1917, when Owen was recovering from shell shock in a war hospital in Edinburgh. Hence, Owen writes from the perspective of a soldier on a battlefield. The persona presents in this poem the effects of war on young male adults sent to war: their loss of identity and their premature death as well as, the indifference or even lack of respect of society towards their premature death. It could be suggested that the author is exploring the theme of the horror of war and the separation war creates between those who stay at home and those who thought: the so-called two nation effect. In order to convey these themes the author employs irony, aural imagery, visual imagery, repetition

The structure of Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth is ironic. It is written in the form of a hybrid sonnet, as it combines the structure of the Petrarchan sonnet with the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet except for lines 11 and 12. The Petrarchan sonnet is a variation of the Elizabethan sonnet as the fourteen lines are divided in two unequal stanzas. The Shakespearean rhyme scheme is ABAB, CDCD, EFFE, GG. One should note that Owen uses a half-rhyme for B. The fact that...