Anthem for Doomed Youth

By Alan Liu

Background Information• It was written between September and

October 1917• At the time, Owen was in Craiglockhart

War Hospital in Edinburgh, and he was under treatment for shell shock.

• While Owen was under treatment, he met Siegrfied Sassoon

• Sassoon helped Owen to edit and polish the poem.

• Sassoon had made various changes to the draftso “Anthem” was added to the title o “Dead” was changed to “Doomed”

Style and Rhyme• Anthem for the Doomed Youth has a rhyme scheme of an

English sonnet (Shakespearean sonnet). (Which is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG).

• Although it is written in the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, which is an Italian sonnet; It contains 14 lines, and is divided into an octave(eight lines) and a sestet(last six lines)

• It is normally used to express the unattainable love, and in this case, for the “Doomed Youth”, it is used for the young soldiers who are dying, which leaves their loved one, their family abandoned, and this shows irony.

The Format 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 from 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 silient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

The Title Anthem for Doomed Youth

• Originally, Owen used “Dead” ,Sassoon had made it “Doomed”• As well adding “Anthem” to the title of the poem. After the title

was finalized, it had a deeper meaning than the one Owen used previously.

• “Doomed” here makes it more significant • “Doomed Youth”, literal technique used here is assonance, the

repeating of the vowels gives the title a more ominous tone.• The title itself is a paradox, anthem is normally used to express the

love for the homeland, but in actual fact, they are sending young soldiers to trenches which they are unlikely to get back, because of their doomed faith.

• Similar irony portrayed here to that of Dulce et Decorum Est.

OctaveFirst Stanza/first eight lines of the poem

• (line 1)What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?• Owen began with the question, which meant “what ceremonies are held for

those young soldiers who are killed like cattle.” He wants the readers to think about it while reading.

• “Passing bells” means the ceremonies for the dead, where prayers were said.• “who die as cattle”, this is a simile and connotation for how the soldiers were

slaughtered.“for these who die as cattle” is used to show that the soldiers had a similar fate to a creature which provide humans with meat, which shows they cannot determine their fate.

• Owen also used cattle to describe: o The life-span of the young soldiers.o Cattle were mass-slaughtered and sent to the abattoir for meat, it is used to

describe the young soldiers’ lives, this shows how vulnerable the soldiers’ lives were in the trenches and the inhumane of war.

OctaveFirst Stanza/first eight lines of the poem

• (line 2) Only the monstrous anger of the guns.• There is a full stop at the end of the sentence, as it answers to

the question “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”. • “Monstrous” is a connotation here means evil and horror. • The hatred from the soldiers gave the guns expressions, such as

anger, this is a transferred epithet, as the feelings of the soldiers are transferred to the their weapons.

• This is also in comparison with the “passing bells”, where people received their ceremonies, although the soldiers in the battle field could not have the same treatment, as they die in the battlefield without any funerals.

Octave• (line 3) Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle• (line 4)Can patter out their hasty orisons.• There is a repetition of only : to emphasize the “monstrous anger of the

guns”. • Alliteration is used to describe the guns, “rifle’ rapid rattle

• “Stuttering” is used as onomatopoeia to imitate the guns as well, in order to make it repetitive.

• It is also a personification as normally humans stutter. • “Can patter out their hasty orisons.” contrasts with the previous sentence,

such as “rapid rattle” to “hasty orisons

• Owen compares the sounds in the trench to the prayers, it indicates that the soldiers had a bitter life in the battlefield

Octave• (line 5) No mockeries for them from prayers or bells, • (line 6)Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs• (line 7)The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

• Mockeries used here as a metaphor for the ceremonies• It follows with “prayers or bells”. • This shows the tragic reality of the war.• The religious ceremony for them is not enough to compensate for their

sacrifice, therefore prayers or bells are merely mockeries to them. • Owen describes the choir, as a cacophony, again, he uses comparison

between two choirs to the wailing shells. He uses it to emphasize the irony of the way they grieve about the dead soldiers, which were meaningless and mockeries to the soldiers’ lives.

Octave• (line 8) And bugles calling for them from sad shires.• Bugles are war trumpets; it is for giving signals and used for gatherings

(bugle call), it is also used in funerals for the dead soldiers.

• Sad shires are places where the soldiers come from, it is called sad shires because their families are sorrowful for their loss. This shows that although they are dying and sacrificing for their country without any recognition, yet there are people out there in their homes, people still remember their names, the only ones that cared about them were their families.

• This is the end of the Octave, therefore Owen made this transition to go on in the Sestete with more information about the families.

Sestete• (line 9) What candles may be held to speed them all?• For the second stanza of this poem, Owen approach the

trench miseries in a different perspective. He continues with the attention is more on the family aspect.

• This is the second question asked by Owen. • Candles in here are the candles used in churches for

ceremonies for the dead, in order to remember the dead. Although as Owen mocked the ceremonies, he is now comparing the traditional ways of death to a war death.

• “Speed them all” means sending hopes forward to the dead and hoping them to get a better afterlife.

Sestete

• (line 10)Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes• (line 11) Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

• By this, Owen is using the faint light of the candles to compare with the light from the eyes of the soldiers, which is also a faint light. It is showing the last hopes of the soldiers, seeing themselves in the battlefield with their comrades, hoping for a better afterlife.

Sestete

• (Line 12) The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

Pallor indicates that e girls’ faces turned pale when they hear about the deaths of their loved ones. Since the soldiers won’t receive a proper funeral, they will not have a pall, which is the cloth to put on the top of the coffin, therefore it is replaced with the grief of the girls’ faces.

Sestete

• (line 13) Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,

• No flowers will be placed in their funerals, since they won’t be having proper funerals. Their tributes will be only remembered by their families.

Sestete

• (line 14) And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds

• “dusk, drawing-down” is alliteration, as it repeats “d” for three times. By “a drawing-down of blinds” meant each day at dusk meant that it is another soldier’s death, therefore they had the blinds drawn down.

Conclusion• In conclusion, Owen had portrayed the pity and horror of the war

and he illustrated the crucial facts and the tragic reality behind war through this poem. As he disagreed on the ideas of religious rites, since it is meaningless to the soldiers who sacrificed, most of all they are not honored for dying for their country. Moreover, he involved the family’s reactions towards their sacrifice. It showed the irony of war, where each single death do not mean much, and their bodies may never be found, they may never receive a funeral, although remembered by the few relatives they have. The poem truly gives the readers an impact on the truth behind the lies of how the war was said to be, which in reality was hell for all the young soldiers that fought in them.

The End