Transcript File

Anthem for
Doomed Youth
-Owen, 1917
Poetic Techniques Definition
Alliteration - The repetition of initial consonant sounds
Assonance - The repetition of vowel sounds.
Metaphor - A comparison between two objects with the intent of
giving clearer meaning to one of them. Often forms of the "to be" verb
are used, such as "is" or "was", to make the comparison.
Onomatopoeia - The use of words which imitate sound.
Personification - A figure of speech which endows inanimate objects
with human traits or abilities.
Repetition - the repeating of words, phrases, lines, or stanzas.
Simile - A comparison between two objects using a specific word or
comparison such as "like", "as", or "than".
Stanza - a grouping of two or more lines of a poem in terms of
length, metrical form, or rhyme scheme.
Cacophony A discordant series of harsh, unpleasant sounds helps
to convey disorder.
Enjambment: The continuation of the logical sense — and
therefore the grammatical construction — beyond the end of a line
of poetry.
Personification: the act of attributing human characteristics to
non-human things.
Rhyming Couplet: a pair of lines that rhyme
Dirge: A musical lament for the dead.
Poem Definitions
Bugle: like a trumpet, commonly used in battle
announcements
Demented: insane or mentally ill
Mourning: state of sorrow over the death or
departure of a loved one
Pall: burial garment in which a corpse is wrapped;
is a cloth which covers a coffin at funerals
Pallor: unnatural lack of color in the skin
The Story
Form:
Purpose:
Tone:
Characters:
Setting:
Title:
Stanza One
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Mourning
rituals
Technique:
Rhetorical
Question
Engages reader to
consider his
argument
Technique: Simile
Effect: Comparing soldiers to
cattle suggests that they similarly
are herded onto the battlefield
and slaughtered in masses. The
simile takes away from them the
human quality of being loved
and cared for as individuals.
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Technique:
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
onomatopoeia
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
Technique: Repetition
Technique: Alliteration
Technique: Personification
Effect: These lines answer the rhetorical question
of the first line. He creates imagery of the battle
field. The repetition of “Only the” exaggerates the
minimalist nature of a soldier’s “funeral”. The
imitation of sound conveys the cacophony of the
battlefield for readers. It is all negative.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
Technique:
Contrast
Effect: the contrast between
the first two lines of what is
missing and what they have
illustrate how far
circumstances are outside of
“normal”.
Technique: Rhyme
Effect: the rhyme of
bells and shells suggests
that one is a direct
replacement of the
other.
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.
Technique: Rhetorical question
Technique: Imagery
Technique: Religious Theme
Effect: suggests that their death is a waste. Not
only is a life gone, but those at home are left to
mourn without closure. Moreover, the
anonymity makes it so that it appeals to all
readers—not just a specific few.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their
pall; Their flowers the tenderness of silent
maids, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of
blinds.
Translation: the unnatural shade of girls’ brows
shall be the ornamental funeral blanket.
Technique: Word Choice—girls boys
Effect: reinforces the helplessness
of killing the young.
Technique: Imagery
Effect: Gives the poem a slight sense of closure, but does
not ignore the loss and waste of lives. Or, on ther other
hand, I suggests that towns are closing their blinds and
ignoring the realities of war.
Other Points
An anthem is a Christian song of praise, but this
sonnet takes this idea and ironically uses the form to
point to loss of a whole generation of youth due to
war
It is a poem that recreates de-humanizing and wasteful
scenes of war in an attempt to shock the audience.
There are parallels of death on the battlefield and at
home churches. Each is treated uniquely: harsh
realism for battle and empathy and compassion at
home. This change is reinforced in the rhyme scheme