meaning of War for Wilfred Owens
There are many aspects of the First World War that as a collective define the knowledge and memories of the war that we have today. As the most well documented War of its time, literature and particularly poetry form a large part of the primary sources available to historians and are invaluable evidence of the meaning of war for many people. One of these individuals is the poet Wilfred Owen who, in the poem ‘Strange Meeting’, sheds light on the meaning of war from the perspective of a soldier experiencing it first-hand. It is a common theme in much of his poetry, but particularly apparent in ‘Strange Meeting’ that for Owen war in general meant a devastating and futile loss for humanity, both for those victorious and defeated. As demonstrated in the following, “I mean the truth untold, / The pity of war, the pity war distilled’, he states that the only issue war can clarify is the fact that it shouldn’t have occurred in the first place.