Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth

Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Ed. by Chris Baldick, Goldsmiths College, University of London
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University), Louise McDonald (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

First circulation or publication Dec 1920

Places

England (Publication/ performance)
Scotland (Country of Origin)

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Poem

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“Anthem for Doomed Youth”, a sonnet by Wilfred Owen, is among the earliest of his poems about the conditions of modern warfare he had encountered on the Western Front during his service as a junior officer in the First World War. Owen wrote it in September 1917 while recuperating from shell-shock at Craiglockhart War Hospital, Edinburgh, and while under the influence of his new friend and literary mentor, Siegfried Sassoon. It was not published until the appearance of Owen’s

Poems

(1920) two years after his death in battle. The text of the poem now most widely adopted was established by Jon Stallworthy in 1983, departing from the 1963 text of C. Day Lewis only in two matters of punctuation. Earlier editions (1920; 1931) had offered slightly different versions of the fifth line.

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1824 words

Citation: Baldick, Chris. "Anthem for Doomed Youth". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 January 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35565, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth

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