Welsh Journals

THE POETRY OF WILFRED OWEN by Ifan Kyrle Fletcher THE month of November, with its solemn celebration of Armistice Day, turned my thoughts to those young men who were cut off at the very beginning of their lives as poets, artists or musicians. It was impossible not to think long and tenderly of Rupert Brooke, of Harold Chapin, a dramatist of distinction, of George Calderon, who first gave us the glory of Tchehov, of Gaudier-Breszka, the Polish sculptor, of Denis Browne, writer of exquisite songs, and of our own Welshmen, Ben Bowen, Edward Thomas and Wilfred Owen. Of all these and many more, artists of diverse gifts and different nations, much has been written. Their death has given them a sacramental glory, and they were all young enough to carry away with them in- finite possibilities. With them departed some of the richest artistic life of their nations; their places have not yet been filled. But the memory of Wilfred Owen is particu- larly strong and vital. It was just eleven years ago that the war robbed us of his life. Wales, the land of his birth, and England, the land of his language, could ill afford to lose this poet. In temperament he was unusual, having ideals but no illusions. The bitterness of life did not eat into him like a cancer, neither did it make him turn to rosy phantasy as an escape. He was stirred to his best poetry by the horrors of war, not because he thought war a suitable subject for the permanence of poetry, not because it brought him pleasant memories of past delights, but be- cause he was impelled by his nature to express the reactions of human souls under the direst stress. He was more than a chronicler; he re- created emotion in lines which have a flame-like intensity. His work has lived through the reaction against everything which savours of war because his own heart was untouched by the horror. The details of his life are few. He was born at Oswestry, of Welsh parents, in 1893. He was educated at Birkenhead and later at London University. In 1913 he obtained work as a tutor in France, where he remained for two years. During this period he enjoyed the friendship of the great French poet, Laurent Tailhade, to whom he showed his early verses. In 1915 he joined the Artists' Rifles O.T.C., received a com- mission in the Manchester Regiment and went with them to France in 1916. The following year he was invalided home, his health being weakly at the best. But in the summer of 1918 he re- turned to his battalion and was killed in Novem* ber while endeavouring to get his men across the Sambre Canal. In 1920 the poems of Wilfred Owen were pub- lished, with an introduction by Siegfried Sassoon, another great war poet. This slim volume of 24 short poems and a fragment of an incomplete preface, is all by which we are able to judge the achievement and promise of this young Welsh- man. As far as achievement is concerned, I think his was much greater than has been generally acknowledged, while his promise was almost illimitable. The comparison between Owen and Rupert Brooke is inevitable. The force of a group of circumstances raised Brooke with amaz- ing ease to a position of high popularity. It is with truth that he has been called "the early Laureate of the War." But no one would have abhorred more than himself the kind of jingoistic sentiments which after his death were associated with his poetry by too ardent patriots. At the time when the whole English-speaking world was finding the expression of its best thoughts in the work of Brooke, the poetry of Owen was almost unknown. As the years pass it is possible to look at them both with clearer eyes and to place them more truly in relation to their age. The essential youthfulness of Brooke and his power of express- ing nobility in terms of his own charming person- ality gained for him his popular reputation. This popularity resulted in much uncritical praise of his work. The estimate which sees no difference in value between "Dining-Room Tea" and "The Dead" shows a grave limitation in the under- standing of modern poetry. In the sestet of the latter poem Brooke reached the high point of his genius. Here is nobility perfectly expressed in felicity of phrase. But while the young Englishman was striving always towards verbal perfection, this entered little into Owen's scheme of poetry. His avoid. ance of a well-turned phrase was not unconscious, as some critics have suggested. It was in every sense deliberate and to my mind, justified. In the incomplete preface he says "This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, dominion or power, except War. Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry. The subject of it is War, and the pity of War. The poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are not to this generation, This is in no sense consolatory." With such an ideal before him how could he seek for pretty phrases? The apprehension of pain was always with him and forced his expres- sion to a violence suited to the subject. Owen knew that it is impossible to write in gentle lyrics